Bluebird's Resolutions: Pride Unleashed
by PrideEdwardElric
Summary: AU Sequel to the game 'Bluebird's Illusion'. Takes place during a crucial moment in Amestrian history, when the disappearance of the Fuhrer King Bradley, General Roy Mustang, Colonel Edward Elric, and his brother Alphonse Elric results in problems. Then a homunculus with a familiar face, going by the name of Pride, starts causing havoc shortly afterwards. MATURE THEMES. NO YAOI.
1. Waking The Fallen

AUTHOR'S NOTE (You can read more on my profile page about more information and why I am attempting this particular FMA story in the first place).

Hello readers. This story is just ONE of many unofficial sequels to Bluebird's Illusions out there, but with my own drastic spin. My Pride will start off somewhat to how we see him at the end of the game, but sooner rather than much later he will change drastically. The fic will have flashbacks and references to the game itself, and even same or similar quotes. BUT, since this is my own sequel spin to it, details will be changed to fit the model of the overall story. Think of it as a hybrid of the first anime series, the manga and the game, but adding and keeping in things I like and taking out things which I don't like. I intend to make the overall mood and most past plot points based around the first anime, with a few manga twists put into it. Almost, if all, chapters will be based around a specific song of a few specific bands I admire, but it certainly won't turn out to be strictly a songfic. And some of the lyrics WILL change to better reference what is mentioned within the chapter, but other than that they'll pretty much stay the same.

This story IS overall centered around Pride, HOWEVER, lots of other related events and characters will be involved and focused on when necessary. If you DON'T want to a demented, crazy, warped, homicidal form of Edward, with blood, gore, nudity, cursing, sexual and other mature themes…TURN BACK, because this WON'T be the fanfic for you to read, regardless of whether or not you like the concept of Pride!Ed or BBI.

Also, one final note, each chapter will be LONG and chock full of connected plot points and very descriptive language, which may or may not reference what will happen in future chapters. So for whatever 'small' or seemingly 'insignificant' things that might happen, I'd advise readers to NOT put aside, because they MAY be relevant later other words, it will be a full-on story, complex and character driven like how we have seen in the animes. So if I take along while before I release the next chapter, don't complain. Also, whatever new or combined concepts you see within this story belong to me, even though the songs used, most of the characters (which includes their homunculus selves as well), and the official anime backstory is not. DO NOT STEAL THEM. I've seen and heard enough theft within the fandom occurring as it is and you WILL get on my nerves.

Anyways…please enjoy the story, everyone. Now, ONWARD.

CHAPTER 1: Waking the Fallen

_'In order to gain something, one must give something of the same value'_

_'This is Alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange'_

_'At that time, we still believed that to be the world's one and only truth'_

_'…But it turns out we were wrong…'_

Envy rushes towards the direction of Father's chamber. He's just witnessed the destruction of a section of the lair, along with the person responsible for it, the now fallen Fullmetal Alchemist.

"SLOTH! Where are you...?" Sloth appeared moments later. She left from her position in the sewers a while ago, once she heard all the commotion that was happening nearby. Once she left the sewers and heard no more commotion taking place, she automatically concluded that she may have appeared too late. She really didn't care much, though, and she was content staying in the sewers as much as possible.

"I'm right here, Envy. I can't find Lust or Gluttony anywhere, maybe they're taking time trying to regenerate properly. It seems their encounters with that general alchemist and the younger Elric brother didn't end as well as we would've imagined." Sloth paused, noticing how jumpy Envy was underneath his agitation. "I was told by Father to stay out of fighting them, so I didn't intervene at all even when I saw them entering our lair. And as you already know, because of who I look like, if I showed myself to the boys it could've put a dent to Father's plans early on."

"Yes yes, I know. We all played our parts quite well today, despite what happened to our three puppet alchemists." Envy said the last few words with disdain. "It really shouldn't bother Father much, the Fullmetal pipsqueak, his eavesdropping brother and meddling general deserved what they got." Envy said nonchalantly with his hands at his hips, looking bored.

"You mean you actually prevented all three of them from escaping? Does Father know anything about this yet?" Sloth was somewhat intrigued by what Envy said.

"I took out his brother and general myself, and now the older Elric is dead as well. The short idiot practically died by his own hands, I didn't know he had the guts to destroy the lair **and **himself at the same time." Envy laughed for a few seconds, before continuing. "I'll be going straight to Father now to let him know what happened. Do me a favor, get rid of that military general but leave the Elric brothers down here for now. They're all in the same part of the lair that is now all rubble. The pipsqueak caused all that damage himself soon after I killed both his precious brother and general right in front of his eyes. Now, all three of the fools are dead, HA. Too bad Bradley was killed by the small fry right before that area went down."

"Really, is that so? Well that's quite a large dent in our plans, don't you think? Who will we make Fuhrer now? And we were planning to use the boy in the future to help fulfill Father's main goal. Now what do we do with him gone?" Sloth didn't really care much for any plans at all, but tried sounding serious.

"The fucking runt asked for it! He just couldn't sit tight and obey the commands we gave him like a good military slave, so he paid the price for his defiance. So what if his brother's body was malfunctioning. We made it perfectly clear to him that he sold his life to us, and we needed him for a greater purpose. If he wasn't so thick-headed he would've had enough sense not to provoke me or any one of us from attacking him and his precious 'loved ones'. Even if he didn't end up killing himself, I would've ended up killing him myself eventually. I hate the little bastard with every fiber of my being!" Envy clenched his fists, grinding his teeth together before continuing. "His brother and general got in my way from taking his pathetic life. In a strange way, he could consider himself quite lucky being the last of them to survive, but I'll bet he'd beg to differ." Envy snickered before continuing. "The stubborn fool took his own life after I killed them, as a way to escape his fate! Such broken, hopeless weaklings humans can be when traumatized, despite how sickening and cruel they really are underneath. Just one trigger, and their impulsive nature to spite others they loather comes out. And yet, they call US the monsters, whenever they ever find out what we really are."

Sloth listened to him attentively with a hand on her hip. "My my, such exciting events that have transpired today. I wish I were involved or at least seen their deaths first hand. I also despise the two brats who created me, and would want nothing to do with them." Sloth's smile was momentarily replaced with a straight, serious line before she continued, "Back to important matters, Envy. Where exactly do you want me to discard the Flame Alchemist's body?"

"Anywhere up above, preferably in a dark alley and far away from any entrances to the lair. Make him neither easy nor hard to find. When the other military lackeys come looking for him, they should be able to find him after a good amount of searching the premises. He actually got the least severe injury, I slashed him pretty deep on his lower stomach. But you can be sure that the fool's dead. The other military idiots won't figure out a damn thing about how he ended up like this."

"Should I leave a few hints and clues of his location scattered nearby, where it's more visible?"

"Do what you like, in that case, I don't really care anymore. Just make sure someone is able to find him, and also make sure no one sees you at all or else they might recognize you. You have your past identity Juliet Douglas to keep secret, after all. When the other dogs find his bloody corpse, they'll think twice before going out to look for his killer immediately. You and I know well that they will first want leads, making up their own conclusions about why and who killed him." Envy paused, then continued with more ferocity in his tone. "I want his death to be an ominous message, to strike fear into them and confuse their simple minds, and to prevent anyone else from becoming as bold and curious as these three idiots, or else death will follow them. We'll make sure they never find out what we are and what we have planned."

"Well, well, Envy, you really do know how to make such magnificent speeches when you're mad at humanity. Too bad the Fuhrer is gone, it seems we have one problem after another occurring lately. But we will find ways to continue exerting our control over this country, like we've done for many years. We have both Father and her leading us, after all." She added as an afterthought, "I may be one of the youngest homunculus for now, but I've come to realize some things. We should be satisfied that we still exist, but **not** as mortal humans." She turns around and leaves without another word.

"Hmph." He let her last, philosophical comment slide, remembering his current task. Envy runs to Father's room in a rush. When he enters Father's chamber, the man in white robes notices the mild excitement on Envy's face. Father is not one to enjoy pointless chit-chat, so he immediately proceeds to discuss about the circumstances that have just transpired. His intuition made him sense that something severe happened concerning the Elrics.

"The alchemic reaction I sensed... Is it Edward's?"

"That right, Father. The pipsqueak's gone crazy! His alchemy triggered off an explosion with the remains of the Philosopher's Stone...that part of the lair is already destroyed. There's no need to go there and check for him, since nothing remains standing and he's dead now. As well as his brother, who's also buried under tons of rubble."

"It would be better that we make sure. I will inspect the area later to see the magnitude of the destruction he has caused. Even though it's an alchemic reaction with the Philosopher's Stone, that explosion is beyond what any ordinary human is capable of. He is indeed one of my flesh and blood sons. His life should not end now, and I know how to bring him back. But first, I have one more inquiry of curiosity in mind. Wasn't there another military alchemist who came down here with my younger son?" Envy held back the small cringe his body was about to make, before he answered him.

"Yes, I took him out. I told Sloth to place the dead body of that meddling general somewhere random on the outside alleys above us. The rest of the military's goons will be looking for him, and I didn't want any of the lackeys to come sniffing around Bradley's office for too long. They'll surely find his body sooner or later. Not that it will do them good trying to find out what happened to their precious Fuhrer, either. He's also dead, defeated by none other than your pipsqueak son. Now that Bradley's gone, the military will be crawling all over the place to find out where he is."

Father sat there listening with an aloof gaze and a hand under his chin. "I see we have so much to do..." He looked directly at him seconds later. "Envy?"

Envy stiffened up, before he responded. "Yes?"

"Bring his body here." As an afterthought, he added, "We will worry about the rest later."

"But, Father...he's just a weakling human. When I left he was already dead! He couldn't withstand the destructive after effects of his huge alchemic reaction. Besides, that place is ruined, so how will I be able to go through all that rubble just to find his puny body amongst megaton blocks of structure?"

"It doesn't matter to me what you do to find him, just as long as you bring him to me. I will give him a new life, a perfect, immortal life as a homunculus, with the perfect name for him."

"..." Envy did not like the feeling he felt on what he might hear next.

"He will continue to help us greatly in achieving our goals. He will be a powerful addition to our family, Dante and I will guide him accordingly."

"But-" He was shut up abruptly.

"Do you have any objections, Envy? Say them and risk inciting my anger, or leave and carry out the task I've ordered, without any questions. I don't have to tell you which one is the wiser choice, you're intelligent enough to figure that out."

Envy's mouth turned into a grimace and his eyes turned fearful. "No...Father. There are no objections from me... I'll go now and get him..."

"From now on, he will be your homunculus brother... I shall call him Pride. The amount of power and hubris he's expressed earns him that grand name. Previously, there was no other homunculus suitable enough to truly take this sin as a name...but now, we've found the perfect candidate. Now go and fetch him for me, and he better be in one piece."

"Y-yes! I'll leave right now..."As Envy was about to turn to leave, Father continued.

"Wait a moment Envy, I forgot something else. There's another additional request I would like to make. I would also want my other son's body brought to me. I have something in mind for him as well."

"Yes Father, I will bring them both at the same time..."

"Try to be quick about it. I'm not sure how long his soul will remain at the Gate. His soul and dying body will soon be separated from each other. There are reasons for why I want his soul present."

Envy leaves Father's chamber, silently wishing Dante were also here. Unfortunately for him, she had 'other matters' to attend to outside of Central. '_Yea right, self-indulgent tendencies is more like it..._' When he is completely out of his sight, he seethes. He did not like being out of the loop of specific details in their overall plans, he was **always **in the loop when it was only him and Dante. Before his dear 'father' came back into their 'family' picture, Dante was able to tell him everything. But even now with his old man back, he feels like his position has been downgraded to the one he had during his more ancient days. He knows that the being who calls himself 'Father' is changed and not exactly 'Hohenheim' anymore, but Envy still sees the situation as similar to how it was back when he was a human. His 'parents' were always hiding something from him. They saw him as only something to be used for their own happiness, and as a complete failure for the remainder of the time. '_Because I didn't have the natural talent for alchemy that they did, and then that short piece of shit came along centuries later and outranked me as his best son_.' Envy thought with pure hatred. Due to the failed reassurances he's gotten from his father, and barely any attention from his sociopathic mother, he never had any affection for them or anyone else during his long, miserable afterlife. In fact, he outright tried to seek out his father, his creator, in order to kill him. During almost his whole entire homunculus life his main motivation was to destroy the bastard and ruin the lives of everyone else connected to Hohenheim.

And then, while he was still human, an early death caught up to him. He was accidentally killed from mercury poisoning, and his old man brought him back from the dead in the homunculus form he is today. After becoming a homunculus the bastard left them as soon as things got worse. And Envy, who was known as William Hohenheim while he was still human, had no one else to look up to or be in company with except for his mother, who he had quickly developed better mutual relations with. To make himself feel less miserable than he actually was, he let her manipulate him into thinking life would be better this way if he only gave it more time to get used to. And truth to be told, he now would certainly agree, especially since his earlier days were the darkest times for him. She stoked his fire of hate as time went on, and in return he helped her in her quest fulfill her selfish goals. Even when he was still human, his bastard of a father was in his own little world to even really care much about him, disillusioned with his spousal problems and moaning about how he ended up with such a mentally unstable woman. He wished his fantasies of wanting 'the perfect family' to come true, which have shattered completely ever since William's human transmutation failed.

How ignorant and naive Hohenheim was back then, thinking he would actually be successful bringing back his dead son. There was a reason human transmutation went against natural laws, and arrogant alchemists like him have their heads so far up their ass to admit to it. He left them soon after William was turned into the 'monster', as he called him, that had replaced his son. He covered up his tracks very well, so well that even Dante had a really difficult time even knowing if he was still in Amestris or not. She suspected him of hiding somewhere in Aerugo or in the desert ruins of the civilization centuries gone, the place which he said he came from before it was destroyed. She got worse and worse, becoming more insane from her anger and her inability of finding him, and of not finding any ways to fulfill her goal to become an immortal human. So much so that she lashed out at Envy during his earlier homunculus days, when he was still fresh and vulnerable from the Gate. He didn't have much spite back then as he should have had towards her, but his pure hatred for his poor excuse of a dad engulfed whatever anger he felt towards her. He **left **them, which was something completely unforgivable. At least she was still there, still gave him **attention**. He was their public enemy number one, so they teamed up against him, finding similar solace in their absolute hatred of him and his decision to leave them. Both of them wished deep down that he'd got his just desserts. And he somewhat did…

Envy was snapped out of his reverie about his past. He went back to thinking about his blonde half-brother. "Why would he name him Pride? That's completely idiotic... The shorty would never want to become like that... As if he ever had a choice to decide, as if I even have a choice to not bring him to Father." _'He probably won't remember anything, our old man would suppress his memories. If he actually does turn him into one of us, it might take a while before parts of his past comes back to him in little pieces. Just like it was for me…' _

Envy stops in mid stride, then slowly puts his foot down. He has a thoughtful look on his face, which quickly turns into a scowl. He then continues walking forward with a more determined, fierce pace.

_'No, I will **make sure** he doesn't get his memories back. If Father commands me to take him under my wing, I'll completely mess him up and turn him into everything that golden child bastard was not. A cold-blooded killer the likes of which pathetic humans have never experienced before! Let's see how much they'll love their precious alchemist prodigy then._' He chuckles darkly to himself as he proceeds towards the rubble-filled area, thinking such thoughts along the way.

He stops at the front of the rubble, looking around for any signs of colors that stood out from all the white, gray and black. He grumbles, all the while assuming that they are buried much deeper, and starts digging through it. _'Sloth was able to get that general alchemist's body out of here already? How the hell was she able to find him through all this shit so quick-_' He stopped his inner dialogue when he noticed stained blue cloth standing out from the rubble, making him grin. He lifted off all the rubble from that specific area, finally finding Edward's dead and bloodied body, his clothes torn apart in some places more than others. '_Of course I'd find **him** first, none other than the prodigy and eldest Elric brat._' Envy thought with disdain. He scanned the body for any possible signs of life and, to no surprise, he noticed none and he lifted Ed onto his right shoulder none too gently, like a rag doll. He proceeded scanning the rest of the area for the younger brother.

It took him a while to find Alphonse's body, getting annoyed and impatient very early on during his search. Al was lying on his side, his chest bloodied and wounded from the deep stabbing blow Envy inflicted on him during their last encounter. The wound was still leaking dark crimson blood, but he had no choice other than to carry him out of the room on top of his other shoulder. Shoulder-carrying was the fastest way for him, thanks to his super speed and strength. He will certainly hate carrying Al's corpse with all that blood running down his arm and body, he realized with a definite scowl on his face forming, but a mandatory task is a task. Envy also noticed that both bodies were still warm, Al's body less so, which indicated that their souls were still at the Gate. If Envy had any real free choice in this, he'd let the bodies stay here and wait until the warmth completely left them and their blood stopped flowing, just to make sure they stay truly dead and lose their souls completely to that infernal Gate which was full of metaphysical mysteries. He didn't know as much as he should have about the Gate's secrets, however, but because he was a being spawned from that realm he knew enough. Envy had an idea of what Father had in mind for them, and if his guess was right, if Edward's soul is kept intact in his body well after his homunculus transformation will take place. But Father should've realized that it would make him much harder to control later on, should he not? There's a risk of Pride turning on them, and Envy could not allow that, he needed to discover a way to keep him under their control. Despite what Envy wants, Father's commands come first before Envy's petty, vengeful wishes. Much to his chagrin, Envy had to return to him pronto. Envy hoped that whatever secrets Father had up his sleeve, he would make sure that his past memories would not resurface to cause Father, Dante and the homunculi trouble again. Envy raced to Father, while his thoughts were still running rampant.

It was during instances like this, when Envy was too thoughtful, that he wished things would return to the way they were before the change of leadership over a decade ago. Before Father took the highest position over the homunculi, and even before Hohenheim left his newer family. Around the same year that he **did **take leadership, Dante told Envy that Hohenheim finally left his _precious _little family to take up his rightful place alongside her to be the master of the homunculi. The bitch indirectly backstabbed Envy for taking **him **back in, but Envy soon understood why. Envy would've laughed at the ironic analogy of them being one messed up family, with Hohenheim and Dante as the 'parents' of all homunculi, but the green-haired sin at the time couldn't accept that it was still **him**. Dante thoroughly explained to Envy why this sudden change happened, but he still didn't like his presence, not caring whether he was trying to make it up to them or not.

Over the years Envy has gotten used to it and learned early on not to go against him, not ever since that first violent encounter they had. He shudders recalling what happened, it was like nothing he ever thought was possible by the likes of someone he previously thought was a spineless coward, and yet Envy stood corrected. From then on he truly knew that his bastard of a human father has 'changed', has become someone more suitable to be around now rather than the abandoning asshole from before, but he's still resentful over the fact that he took over from Dante and she willingly became second in command. And the two-faced bitch was completely fine with it! She literally became deluded over the idea of this reunion being _perfect_. Every time Envy saw him he couldn't help but try to strangle him, and then had to shrug off these feelings when he remembered how much he was bested by him the first time he lashed out at him. Ever since then, he decided it's best to cast aside most of the memories of his ancient days, for fear of getting himself worked up constantly and having his anger get the best of his reason. Usually not one to get conscious about his anger getting the best of him, he definitely kept his mood in check when he was actually was around Father. He's mostly gotten used to it, but he didn't like it, becoming 'docile' for anyone. It was only years later when he truly got used to being around him. The first days of regime change never ended well for Envy, but he harbored his resentment for his old man well. He always felt like he was walking on eggshells when around him. Whatever change Hohenheim went through, he was very thorough in hiding the details, but Envy was not stupid. He caught many little hints later on, not to mention how obnoxiously loud his 'mother' was about him sometimes. Despite getting used to him, the deep anger he felt for what Hohenheim did will never quell, regardless of how things turned out.

Instead of focusing on Hohenheim, he set his sights on newer, more practical targets, his rival siblings or 'the Elric shits' as he liked to nickname them. The progeny Hohenheim sired out of that dead brunette's cunt. Even Sloth herself despises the offspring her human self had, she wants nothing to do with them now, which is fitting for her name. He does not like it one bit that Father will turn Edward into a homunculus, but at the same time he had his own counter plans in the works, designed to quench his undying hatred for them. To be a slap in the face against everything that they once had, what they previously stood for. He was going to turn him into the very thing his human self would've despise. He especially wanted to make Edward into a psychotic murderer, that shorter blonde fool who was diametrically opposed to Envy in every possible way, Envy's moral polar opposite, yet the best candidate of the two for what Envy had in store. It was a long-lasting process, one that he was sure would turn out in his favor for once. He was not patient whatsoever, and it will be hard for him to maintain such tolerance being around him, but he needed to make this work. If he causes their homunculus 'family' trouble, **then **Envy will show his nastier side. He hates them both as much as he hated Greed, who is now gone for good, but he'll try to tolerate Ed's homunculus just as much as he tolerated Greed during his earlier years. Back when Greed was still human and Dante thought he made a good replacement father…

His thoughts were abruptly stopped there, partly because he didn't want to remember this miserable part of his past, and because he's finally reached his destination. He opened the doors to Father's throne room, awaiting for the inevitable that was about to happen. He walked up to Father, putting down both brothers on the floor one by one, much more gently than he wanted to. Envy didn't want to upset Father during this crucial moment, these two were his 'precious' alchemist sons, after all.

"Here, I've brought them." Envy tried wiping off the blood from his shoulder that Al's body left on him. Father's expression turned somewhat alarmed at that, noticing the huge gaping wound on his youngest son.

"You made that wound on him?" He sounded mildly upset. Envy became nervous just then. What was he going to say, the truth? It will anger Father even more if he told him the whole back-story of why Edward went berserk at all. How Envy was attempting to murder him in the first place, but then his brother and that military dog got in his way.

Instead of the whole truth, Envy said, "I did Father, but it's because the younger idiot got in the way of me trying to stop his runt brother from escaping. He moved in front of my attack and got—" Father cut Envy short abruptly, making Envy cringe in confusion.

"Envy, there's no need to lie to me. It bothers me that you would resort to such pettiness in my presence, it's really unnecessary. Your half-brothers will be born anew very soon, there's no need to worry. You were right to initiate the final blow upon them, they were disloyal and were causing us trouble. Troublemakers are no use to us unless they are taught a lesson, fatal or otherwise." He stood up next to Envy. "Now Envy, stand aside, I will create a transmutation circle half the size of the room fit to accommodate this transformation." Father raised his hands in the air and, like magic, lines and curves were being carved onto the stone floor feet away from the four of them. It was all done through his invisible alchemy, without the need to actually clap and touch his hands on the ground to make the array, nor requiring the use of array-making tools. He knows many secrets of alchemy from the knowledge he attained from the Gate, so much so that regular alchemy seems like child's play to him. The circle greatly resembled a human transmutation circle, except that the inner space has an extra isosceles triangle facing opposite from the other one, forming a hexagon star inside of the solid hexagon shape. And in the small circle at the very center, overlapping the six intersecting lines, is another design resembling Alphonse's armor suit soul binding circle but much more detailed and full of different symbols all over. When he finished, he reached down and touched the huge gash on Al's chest, forcing it closed with his Philosopher's Stone's inner power. He then faced Envy, ready to make his next request. "I need you to place Edward in the center. Since he's the oldest and greatest of the two, and has displayed such immense power, he will bear the name Pride." Envy picked up Edward and walked to the center, gently putting him down. "Now, move Alphonse to a back corner and stay there with him, he must not come in contact with Edward's transformation."

Envy again did as he was told. He didn't want to admit it, but he was curious to see the birth of another homunculus first hand, even if it's through this unique way. He despised alchemy, never being able to grasp it himself when he was still human and further hating it because the pipsqueak was Hohenheim beloved alchemy prodigy. Despite this, the one thing he found fascinating about alchemy is the way it's used to create his kind, the homunculi, who were greater beings than humans themselves. It was the way he was born. At first he absolutely loathed being brought back from the dead as an undead monster of alchemy by **him**. The arrogant jackass of a father who thought he could defy the laws of nature and bring him back perfectly the way he was before his human death. But he learned soon enough that his rage is better suited against all of mankind, the vile beings who thought they had power over the Gate's dominion, the very place he actually came from. He thought that **he **was doing nature a favor by killing lots of humans off. It didn't help the fact that, as a homunculus, he and the others **needed** them for their plans, but he had to live with this sad fact. He saw himself returning from the dead for this one purpose, to help kill vast numbers of this dreadful species, whether by direct killing them or using their energy from philosopher's stones as food. The less humans the better, in his mind. Yes, he definitely held contempt for humanity, but that's also due to his jealousy of them, hence his name. And the fact that he will never again live without misery, partly because his hatred and jealousy wouldn't allow him, but mostly because he really didn't have a choice. He needed to go along with Father and Dante whether he liked it or not, being skilled alchemists who knew too much they were the only ones able to supply him with stones. His jealousy of the Elric brats only increased his overall jealousy of the whole human species. Much to his displeasure, he will only have to learn patience from now on, if he plans to carry out what he has in mind for the blonde prodigy.

In order to initiate the transmutation that was about to transpire, Father started it with the classic alchemic clap, then placed his hands on the ground on the nearest part of the circle facing him. This transmutation was supposed to be done manually, since it involved an array. What resulted from this was a bright light-blue light signature of most alchemic reactions, creeping over every corner of the room in an almost blinding fashion. Edward's body seemed to animate on its own, moving up in a standing position like a puppet controlled by invisible strings, engulfed in the bright blue light. The ripped military clothes that were previously on his body started disappearing, with him soon after becoming completely nude. His body's true colors were being covered by the blue, leaving only the main outlines of it visible beyond the light. Arms were outstretched at his sides, and his long blonde hair was moving crazily behind him. His mouth was wide open and full of pure white light, appearing as if he is screaming even though no sound is coming out. The same happened with his eyes, which wide and glowing bright white. His automail limbs disappeared, being replaced by what looked like his own flesh appendages. Huge lines of light resembling lightning strikes, with the same pure white hue, hit around the body in various places, making various patterns of white. It was as if the white patterns were done by a metaphysical brush with white paint on his body so intricately right before their very eyes. The first and foremost solid pattern of white energy formed on his left shoulder in the form of the ouroboros symbol, then the rest of his body followed suit with various strange markings appearing all over, both symmetrical and asymmetrical, lines and curves alike.

In a flash, he was gone. To Father and Envy, it looked like he disappeared for a few moments, but Father knew why this occurred. It was part of the process, and Father did not worry one bit because he had complete control of the situation. Edward's body was brought to the Gate, black Gate arms grabbing hold of him and moving his body toward it. Father was causing this, this process was Father's finishing touches upon his body and mind. The apparition of his soul stood directly in front of the open Gate, being held there by the arms. The shocked apparition stood there helpless and silent. The body came closer and closer to it until they touched, with the apparition disappearing as soon as the joining happened. The body also disappeared behind the Gate's doors.

Wake the ones and rise tonight  
Fallen souls we shine so bright

Soon after, the blue light changed into a menacing purple tone, like the sort of purple hue seen in the irises of homunculi. He was starting to appear again. His open mouth, full of white light, started screaming, which soon lessened in volume as the purple and white lights started to vanish. When the transmutation stopped, his naked body descended down with a slight thud, leaving him in a position with his legs folded underneath his body, his arms at his side, and his head hanging down. His long hair, now free from its band, was hiding the sides of his face and closed eyes. His mouth closed, now hiding his newly formed razor sharp teeth, and the surrounding noise completely stopped. Father and Envy were now able to see his fully changed form. Disregarding the nudity and paler tone, Envy focused intensely on him and noticed his body was covered with red marks, intrigued by them although he dared not to ask Father what they meant.

Father was the first to break the silence. A Philosopher's stone was suddenly in his hand, brought forth from his own body. He had the stone prepared while Envy was sent out to fetch the bodies. He was walking slowly towards the new homunculus. "Rise my son, and take this stone from my hand." The blonde homunculus winced slightly before his eyes fluttered open. His eyes were pools of murky amber, no pupils in sight. He stood up with a blank expression on his face, his attention immediately on Father.

"...A-alive..." The homunculus said flatly, with no emotion whatsoever. Father, who was now standing in front of him, nodded and held out his hand with the stone towards him. He looked at it curiously.

"Consume the stone, as a homunculus it will give you almost the unlimited energy you need. You are my greatest offspring, and you deserve this, Pride." Pride sniffed at the hand, almost like a dog. Liking what he smells, he grabbed onto Father's arm and moved his mouth towards the hand. This surprised Father and he tried to stop him before his mouth made contact. "Pride...no, not like that..." He pulled off Pride's hands from his arm in a chastising manner. It seems, being a fresh homunculus, he needed Pride to work on his basic etiquette. Father also concluded that, since he was just reborn, he might be oblivious to most of his surroundings as well. He must have not heard Father's command moments earlier. "Open your mouth. No **biting**." Pride cringed at the tone of the last word. He did as he was told, sticking his tongue out in the process. Father put the stone on his tongue. "Now swallow it." Pride closed his mouth, gulping the stone down. "Good, Pride. Now all we have to do is wait for it to take effect." He pet his head in an approving manner.

Envy was watching the whole thing. If he didn't know any better, he would be dying of laughter right now. Instead, he was smirking wildly. '_Wow, it's like the transmutation took away his brain. This is rich!_'

Father seemed to sense Envy's amusement, and turned his attention to him briefly. "You shouldn't be laughing at the expense of his only temporary, unfavorable condition, Envy. Dante told me you were exactly the same way during your first few days." Envy's mouth turned upside down after that. It became a sneer once Father looked away from him again. He already didn't like Father showing too much attention to Pride. Father putting him down like that, in favor of _Pride_, as he called him, made this experience all the more worse.

Moments later, Pride's left side started twitching, eliciting a moan from his mouth. "...it's...pain-ful..." His right hand clutched his left shoulder, cupping over his ouroboros mark. He winced, with his knees bringing his body downward, and his whole body shaking. His eyes have not shown much expression as of yet, but they were fully wide now. "...make it...st-stop...". He then descended more to the ground, bringing his body into fetal position. His right arm, however, was on Father's wrist, all the while he was still focused on him.

"Don't fight against it Pride, you need this energy. It will be your main energy source which will enable you to stay powerful at all times." Father has to let Pride deal with the after effects. He couldn't interfere or else he risked severing the reactive connection between Pride and the stone. He **wanted **the stone to reside in him without any drawbacks. This was the first time creating a homunculus in such a way, and he wanted this whole transitioning process to turn out right.

Pride was gripping on tightly, but there was no response or help from Father. "...please..." Seconds later, his eyes closed and he fainted. His hand let go of the wrist he held onto so tightly, and he now lie flat on the floor.

Father spoke to Envy, "He only fainted from the insertion of the stone's immense energy within him. This is a normal blowback reaction to it. Pride will be fine once he wakes up, we'll just have to wait until he recovers from the shock."

Envy wanted to speak again, he felt ignored. "What do we do now then? Just stay here until he's up again?"

"Certainly not, there is still much to do. Bring me Alphonse's body. After that, you will bring Pride to your room and keep him there until he awakens. When he does, alert me and I will come." Father made a huge stone slab out of alchemy in front of his throne.

Envy walked up to Father with Alphonse in his arms, an obvious unsatisfied look settling on his face. Envy was **not **okay with the answer he got, plus he was surprised at the audacity of it all. Father was ignoring the fact that he wanted Pride to take up **his **room, his **own **place of privacy where he can be at peace by himself. And with Pride **naked**, no less. Sure, it was weird for homunculi to even have rooms, but in a strange ironic sense homunculi needed their own place of peace. Envy was getting ticked off, but he hid any disagreement. "You should put some clothes on him first! He may be one of us now, but it doesn't mean I'm okay with seeing his privates." '_And I'm certainly not okay with him being one of us **at all**_', he wanted to add but knew best not to.

Father actually chuckled at that, noticing Envy's extreme discomfort. "Don't worry Envy, I will give him something to wear once he wakes up. Right now, I have another important task to carry out." Envy walked up to Father with Alphonse in his arms and placed his body on the floor nearby. He then walked towards Pride and picked him up the same way, going straight for the door. As an afterthought, Father made one last request, "Make sure you put Pride on an elevated surface, I better not find him on the floor when I see him again. Your bed will do."

Once Father was out the door Envy looked down at Pride's face with utter contempt, his hands clenched tighter upon the blonde's body, squeezing at his right arm in anger. Pride's closed eyes twitched only slightly at this. '_He **better **wake up soon, or I'll rip the runt's face to shreds!_' was what Envy wanted to say, but kept to himself. Once in his room, Envy just plopped Pride ungracefully onto his poor excuse of a bed at the back of his room, the only place where he could sit which was not a hard surface. He never used it for sleep since homunculi don't actually sleep, they didn't need it. Being passed out, however, is a whole other thing. He made sure to position Pride's body facing away from him. This wasn't only to avoid looking at the nudity, he just couldn't stand the runt being in **his **space and on **his **bed. Envy had all the rage in the world aimed at Pride's back, especially at his long blonde hair. He wanted to destroy him right now, but he had to keep this urge in check. And also keeping in mind what his initial plans were to exact his revenge, the right way. If he went all out on him now, he knew Father would make his life a living hell. He needed to think smart from now on, not brash and impatient like he usually is. If he got destroyed now then his whole existence so far would've been meaningless, and most important of all his own reasons for living, being his hate and vengeance, would become completely worthless in the end.

It would also piss off Dante if Father destroyed him, since he was her greatest homunculus lapdog and they have their past connection with each other. Despite this, he's certain the manipulative bitch wouldn't give a shit about him after a while either. Ever since Dante heard of Edward's existence years back, and even more after she took her first glimpse of him, her thoughts about him never left her mind. She had a sort of infatuation for the twerp, because she considered him the 'fair son of Hohenheim'. She will continue to think this way even when he's a homunculus, Envy concluded immediately, because she never changed. She sees many traits in the pipsqueak that she saw in his old bastard centuries ago, when the two were still 'happily married' together. Envy knew deep down that she was nothing but a psychologically messed up hopeless romantic. And she saw Envy as an even more pitiful, pathetic shell of his former self, so their feelings for each other were pretty much mutual. Despite this, they shared similar thoughts about the world and used the best of what they found while working together. Whatever mother-son relationship they once had transformed into a pure acquaintanceship instead. With Father coming into the picture later on, he knew this relationship ended and his rank lowered significantly, but there was no other choice for him. It's either obey or starve, get well fed or become a weakling with no more powers. After all, without any stones in them, homunculi are essentially degraded down to the position of super mortals, retaining a portion of their super abilities which were default to their being in lesser degrees, such as Envy's super strength and speed, but not their supreme powers, the powers completely impossible for humans to have. And Envy certainly did **not **want to lose his shape-shifting powers. It's the only thing of value to him that he still has, besides his extreme hatred of practically almost every living thing around him, especially humans. Not only that, but he will feel like a pathetic human once again.

Hours have passed and Envy remains standing, leaning on the other side of the wall with his eyes closed and hands crossed over his chest. He refused being anywhere near his bed. He didn't know what Father was doing in his throne room with the younger brat's body, but he's lost all interest by now. Father will most likely tell him later anyways. Right now, he wanted the older brat to wake up. He's waited long enough.

During this quiet time, Envy had nothing else to do other than be engulfed into his own racing thoughts. He normally would go crazy from the sheer boredom of watching over Pride, but after all this thinking it seems as if time flew by faster than he imagined it would. He was planning out everything he intended to teach Pride once they were both sent out on missions, how he intends to mentor him into becoming a vicious killer and turn him into everything else his human self was not. Envy was definitely sure that Father would eventually start ordering Pride to go out on missions with him, with Envy being the best and oldest candidate for showing him the ropes properly. And that's when Envy will put his plans into effect. He was so eager to make this all work out for him that he didn't bother looking for any flaws in his overall thinking. His future plan may very well backfire on him instead of benefitting him in the long run, but of course Envy's mind was stuck only on the present and full of hate and jealously, and thus did not consider any consequences. Regardless of how Pride would turn out, Envy would never truly accept him as a fellow homunculus. He would only see him as a manipulated tool.

In the meantime, Pride's mind was much more active than Envy's, so active in fact that he thought he was awake. He saw many images flashing before his eyes, remembering none of them yet finding some sort of comfort by their strange familiarity. Finding his inner voice, he suddenly thought, '_What...does...this...all...mean...?_' The images stopped after what felt like moments later. His mind's eye appeared in a bright place full of light, with a huge gate at opposite end of the area. He was many yards away from it. There was something else in front of the gate, an apparition. The more he looked at it, the more familiar it felt. It was a young boy with short, dirty blonde hair and huge bronze-grey eyes, looking no younger than 10, staring at him. '_Who...are...you? I...know...you!_' The boy then reached an arm out to him and started moving his mouth, but Pride heard no words. And then, just like magic, he saw the boy transforming right before his very eyes, into an older, taller version. And like Pride is now, this 16 year old was now nude. The gate behind the teen opened up slowly, revealing one huge eye in the center and small black figures underneath it, drawing forth many thin, long, black arms. The arms wrapped around the teen, pulling him in towards the inside of the gate. Pride didn't know why, but he felt like he needed to run to him and save him. It was no use though, every step he tried taking forward he was still held in place. He was trying to run towards the taller teen but he wasn't moving out of his spot at all!

Pride's mouth moved, making a one-syllable word, but the word fell on deaf ears. He couldn't hear himself speak now, something was preventing him from doing so. It might have been the significance of what he said that was being intentionally blocked from him, but why? The teen was almost fully in the gate, his mouth making scream-like movements and his eyes wide and scared. He was reaching out to Pride frantically, as a last measure of calling out for help. Pride was still running in place, helpless that he couldn't control his movement in this surreal environment. The physical laws of the natural world did not apply here, he realized. He mouthed a two-syllable word that Pride couldn't hear right before the teen's face was engulfed. The teen's right hand was the last thing to disappear, before he was completely engulfed into the everlasting darkness behind him and the doors closed shut in front of Pride. Pride stared at the gate wide-eyed during these last moments with what felt like tears falling down onto his cheeks, but was too overwhelmed and, surprising to him, very upset to even touch his face and confirm it. '_I'm...so...sorry..._' He was starting to gain consciousness as the gate disappeared and his mind's eye started blurring. His eyes then snapped open.

Rise now and ever  
Leave your memory

Envy was brought out of his reverie when he heard a groan coming from nearby. Pride was now lying flat on the bed, holding his left shoulder, eyes now wide open and his murky amber irises facing Envy. He watched the green-haired sin carefully.

"Finally...you're awake. I've been waiting quite a while for the moment when you'd be able to leave my goddamn room." Envy walked a few steps to the center of the room, still keeping his distance. In a demanding tone, he said, "Stay here while I fetch Father, he wants to see you right now." Envy walked towards the door but stopped his stride once he heard an ungraceful thud on the floor and more groaning coming from behind him.

"Nngg... Don't leave... Still hurts..." Pride looked up at Envy and reached up as much as possible with his right arm.

Envy growled "I'm coming right back with Father, you dumbass baby! Just **wait** for us on the bed!" Envy was about to open the door when he felt a hand loosely clasp around his ankle. Getting really annoyed at Pride's pathetic attempts of keeping him here, he kicked off the hand harshly then landed a kick at his chest. Pride cried out in even more pain, and soon feeling much worse pain when Envy picked him up by his left arm and literally dragged him back up on the bed. Envy took a handful of his hair and raised his voice, while being a mere inches from Pride's face, "You deserved that, little shit. Next time you better **listen** to your superiors and elders if you don't want to get hurt." Envy let go of his hair harshly and walked to the door. He slammed it open, then slammed it shut, stomping out of the room.

Pride was breathing quickly, staring at the shut door. He did not like Envy's treatment of him, but didn't think much else of it because his thinking mind was not all there. While his newly injured areas healed up, his shoulder was still flaring up with a piercing, but fainter, pain. He noticed the pain had lessened in contrast to before his 'sleep'. A few minutes later and sure enough, Envy returned with Father. At a corner, Envy was still looking at him in a murderous manner, hands folded on his chest staring intently at him, as if telling him 'say about what happened before and you'll get it worse later'. Pride may have just been reborn, but he learned immediately not to anger Envy, especially while in such a mediocre state.

Father came up to Pride, examining him. "Envy, you said he was still in pain, correct?"

"Yea, the whiny idiot couldn't stop complaining about it, so much so that he tried to make me stay here." Father ignored Envy's snide insult of Pride as he got hold of the blonde's face and looked straight into his eyes. Pride was feeling awkward about this. After what felt like a minute, Father took hold of his arm and raised it up. Pride was struggling a little against the touch, but Father didn't let go.

"Be still, Pride, I won't harm you. I'm just going to inspect your shoulder to see if the stone's transitioning process went through properly." Pride could not explain why, but he was feeling somewhat nervous. He felt as if he forgot something important. His renewed mind couldn't allow him to think straight, no matter how hard he tried. He just wanted the pain to go away. "Sit up and look at the wall in front of you." He did as he was told. Father grasped the shoulder and felt around it. "Where exactly is the piercing pain?" Pride pointed somewhere south of the ouroboros mark. "Ah yes, I feel a bump here. It seems the stone didn't properly insert itself as I expected it should. I need to fix its position. Pride, I'm going to ask you to endure just a bit more pain, can you do that for a minute? I promise the pain will go away soon after."

Pride didn't want to feel any more pain, but it seemed like he had no choice. He was looking up at Father with seemingly empty eyes, then moved his head downward looking down in front of him. "Okay." Father made a small nod. He put his palm flat on the ouroboros and alchemic energy came out of it. The mark started to glow blood red underneath his hand. Pride gasped and then yelped in agony, and then clenched his eyes and jaws shut. He felt the stone move upwards underneath his skin and in place under the mark. It then positioned itself sideways in his arms, making him emit a final whimpering cry. The alchemic light died down, and Pride's body seemed to slouch a bit in relief. Seconds later, he brought his head up with what seemed like amazement. His eyes widened as he touched his shoulder. He felt no more pain. It was only because the stone was out of place that he was in pain. Now it was over. "I feel...alright now."

Envy watched all this with mild annoyance. In other circumstances, he might've enjoyed all the pained sounds coming out of the blonde runt's mouth, but his mood was already too sour for him to enjoy this. He just wanted the brainless idiot out of his room as soon as possible.

"I'm glad to hear that, son. Everything else seems to be alright as well." He patted his shoulder with lackluster approval. He then focused on Envy, ordering him to the front of the room, and, close to his ear, very lowly he said, "Make sure to be wary of when his eyes start to change. His transition from human to homunculus will have both inward and outward side effects that signal how far the transformation has progressed. And make sure that you pay attention for any suspicious behavior. I've tried blocking out his past memories, but what would also help is if you could prevent him from regaining them from now on. I will make other improvements on him if needed." He faced Pride again. "Now Pride, you need to gain more sustenance, to further build up your energy." He reached into a pocket from somewhere on his white robes, pulling out crimson stones that reminded Pride of the one he consumed just hours ago, but smaller. Father extended his palm out, with the stones on, enabling Pride to have a better view of them. "These are red stones, they are similar to the Philosopher's Stone I gave you before, but unlike the other one these will not be your main energy supply. You must not be rash in wasting the energy of the Philosopher's Stone. Instead, the red stones will give you the temporary boost you need to fight. You will receive red stones after every mission, and the amount will increase after each time the more powerful you become. Here, consume them all." Pride didn't understand why, but all of the sudden he got a rush of energetic bliss by being near the stones. He wasted no time, grabbing one of them and swallowing it. He smiled with red-tinted teeth at the taste of it and greedily grabbed the rest from the big hand of Father. He got into a rushed feeding frenzy, his slightly sharpened teeth becoming somewhat longer and pointier. It was like he was transforming little by little right before their eyes, albeit hardly visible to any untrained eyes. "Good. Now that you are well fed, I should give you some clothes. It certainly won't do well for you to walk around nude." From the other side of his robes, he pulled out a dark, long fabric, similar in tone and color to Envy's attire. "This special fabric is the same kind of material found on your brothers and sisters, similar to the durable material Envy wears. It's a type of material unique to homunculi, given to them by the Gate after the first time they consume stones. You didn't gain any automatic clothes because you are a special case, so I must manually make them for you." Father was interrupted before he could proceed.

"Why is that, Father?" Pride looked at him directly in the eyes with much stamina present in his now less murky golden irises. He was also not stumbling over his words like before, and his mind felt a whole lot clearer. All of the sudden he was curious about homunculi, or rather, himself specifically. No doubt it was because of the stones, he realized. They've given him enough energy to fix much of his mind and body, even though there was still room for more improvement.

Father didn't want to say too much, as a precaution to prevent the possibility of Pride finding out his memories, and so soon after his rebirth. On the one hand, he didn't want to keep everything about homunculi secret from him because he was his most prized son, and believed that he should know more about the type of homunculus he's become. On the other hand, knowing how Edward was before, he knew his son would never want to be the way he was now, forever a homunculus and unwittingly working towards Father's wishes yet again. Of course, he made it very clear to Edward from the very beginning that his plans for him were far from finished. "You, Pride, were born under special circumstances. Your name fits you because you are also the prototype of a new type of homunculus. While I fashioned you to be the greatest from all the others, different rules apply with your kind, but you are all a part of the same homunculus family nonetheless. You're still just a newborn, and there is much we need to show you in order to become a full-fledged homunculus." Pride was satisfied with this answer, especially the part where Father complimented him, so he left the questions at that.

Father then took hold of the cloth's edges and his hands started glowing with basic blue alchemical light. Immediately, the fabric transformed into two big pieces and four smaller ones. This pile of clothes consisted of a top piece, a skort, two fingerless gloves of different sizes and two ankle gloves. Both the large pieces of clothing looked exactly like Envy's, but slightly smaller, made to accommodate his shorter stature. He handed them to Pride. He was satisfied to see Pride was able to side the gloves correctly, showing his inherent intelligence so early after his transformation. And just as Father expected they would, the gloves showed off the red nodes and lines of his lower arms and legs. These special clothes became transparent in places where they touched the nodes and the lines that extended from them.

"After you dress yourself, follow after me. I have several things to show you that you must learn." Pride, even though he still had a blank glare, looked incredulously at the skort, but swallowed his displeasure and wore it. Father turned to Envy and spoke, "Your work with him is done for now. I will let you know what to do next once I've made Pride more accustomed to his abilities. We will speak privately later about a few other matters as well." Father went to the door and waited for Pride to follow. Pride got off the bed fully clothed and stood up without any difficulty at all, following his lead. They finally headed out of Envy's room, much to Envy's relief. He glimpsed back at Envy curiously, who sneered back at him in response, before he disappeared from Envy's view completely.

They entered Father's chamber shortly after. Father sat in his throne and Pride stood in front of him, waiting patiently for his next command. Pride still had those blank eyes and that emotionless stare, but he was more aware than he looked, Father concluded. Father looked him up and down, looking for any flaws or mishaps on his body. The marks, for which their existence on Pride's body had more than one purpose, looked all in place, and he looked much healthier and livelier now than he did right after his transformation. His skin tone, paler than when he was human, still gained more color than what it looked like just hours ago. His previously automail limbs, which were completely 'flesh' now, were absent of any scar marks. His body was literally made brand new with no previous signs of amputation or injury, thanks to Father's advanced alchemy and his manipulation of the Gate's knowledge and power. What happened to them is still a mystery, although Father has lots of secrets up his sleeves and may decide use of every component of Pride possible later on.

"My son, I'm going to inspect you a little more to see if everything went well with your birth. This won't hurt at all." Father extended Pride's bare right arm outward. He glimpsed at his left leg too and, like before, saw no signs of flaws. Only body symmetry was present, save for the different red mark patterns all over him. Father found his own handiwork remarkable. "Good. You look perfectly fine. Now, I have to show you your first tool to use for offense and defense. With your lithe body, you should be able to move and fight efficiently, but you will also need a weapon. I can't risk letting you use normal alchemy for some time, since you're still fresh out of the Gate's realm, so for now you will make use of something else I've ingrained into you." Father touched the center of Pride's forehead, exactly where his pineal gland would be, and Pride felt a surge of information going into him. Some of the knowledge Father instilled into Pride was brought to the forefront of his mind, and at that instant Pride knew enough of this new functional knowledge to attempt some of it right on the spot. "What I want you to do now is materialize the weapon that suits you best. The one your mind's eye is showing you right now."

Pride closed his eyes for a few seconds, then looked directly at the blonde man in front of him. "You mean…a scythe, right?" Pride didn't wait for a response, he innately knew what to do. He clapped his hands together, then held out his right arm. Instantaneously, a large metallic weapon, approximately six foot in height, appeared as a result of this quick alchemic reaction, towering considerably over him. It had a long sickle extending from one side on the top, a long chain extending from the two end of the shaft, and two handle placements, one in the upper half of the shaft facing the opposite direction from the sickle and the other in the lower half facing the sickle. Despite its huge size, Pride had no difficulty holding it up, thanks to his inhuman strength. Pride was actually impressed with himself for being able to bring forth a scythe out of nothing, or what he thought was nothing. He felt enough excitement that he made a very faint smile in response, but other than that his face was still devoid of emotion.

"That weapon will be an extension of you. It symbolizes none other than death itself. The death you will bring to those who I see unfit or untrustworthy to dwell in the upper world. And those who might try to ruin my plans. You are one of the few I find competent enough to carry out the tasks I have in mind. That will be your main purpose, and as your father and creator, I demand your undying loyalty towards me. You are my most glorious offspring yet, Pride, and I have made sure of that. Not all your powers will surface now, and because of the conditions which resulted in your birth they will come in parts and slowly. Hopefully they will appear soon, but even I can't guarantee anything at the moment. There are some abilities you have now though, some hidden while others being more apparent. Among them are super strength and super speed. Now that you have your weapon, demonstrate to me how skilled and powerful you are. Your ingrained knowledge will help you." Father had to pay attention to all details, in case there are any flaws. As knowledgeable and powerful as he is, even Father is not immune to error.

Pride nodded and walked to the center of the room. He flung and twirled his scythe around, taking turns between both hands on each side, then above his head. He made a few special moves, moving his scythe around him very quickly by the chains, and normal moves, flinging it around with the help of the handles. Father noted how fast and agile he was, which had become more obvious once he started running and becoming a blur of yellow, black and red all over the room. Pride was able to jump so high and run on the walls too, seemingly defying gravity. His homunculus strength and speed enabled him to perform such a feat. His finishing moves were impressive as well. When he landed on the ground with his scythe he made a considerably large impact. The scythe may look like normal metal, but it was near indestructible, made by a form of special alchemy in which only Pride, and to an extent Father, can disintegrate. The weapon was like an extension of him, and in actuality it was. Father also found Pride's long hair not being a nuisance to him interesting as well. Just like his scythe, his hair was an extension of him too, but much less significant. It appeared to become more sentient and _alive_ every time Pride moved, yet at the same time looked petrified and _dead_. A contrasting enigma that Father anticipated when he was shaping his abilities. The powers he situated into Pride have various side effects which are mostly beneficial to him. Pride is the first homunculus of his kind, but Father assumed the same would apply for any others that may follow after him. Pride's body is still mainly Edward's corpse reanimated. And Father expects him to go through a huge metamorphosis within the next few months, or perhaps earlier, which will turn him into a complete homunculus. In the meantime, he's just a hybrid of human and homunculus. His eye color change will determine when that transformation becomes complete, that will be the final physical sign.

Pride was interrupted in the middle of a huge attack move when Father called out to him, "That's enough Pride, you've proven yourself much more capable than I imagined. Your strength is incredible, your agility is even better, and you're more than worthy to wield such an immense and majestic weapon. It seems I made the right decision naming you after the greatest deadly sin." Pride descended to the floor landing on one knee and foot, then stood up gracefully, looking at Father with an aura of smug self-confidence, proudly holding his scythe tall with one hand.

"Thank you, Father. I intend not to disappoint." Pride said, with a hint of arrogance, while still masking his face with an emotionless glare.

Father smiled. "It's only fitting that I send you out on a trip on your first day, it seems you are now suitable enough to handle new surroundings in the above world, where the humans dwell. Soon, I will be sending you out on missions where you will need to shed their blood. Only then will they start to learn their place in this world, which is their subservience to us. Knowingly or unknowingly it does not matter in the end."

Pride grunted in approval. "Yes, they will know their place once I'm through with them."

"Not all of them, of course, homunculi still need humans as a food source. We can't bring them to the brink of extinction, not yet. But we can kill those who become alchemists or get in the way of my plans. The plans for our everlasting power and dominion over the planet. Dante is working on some things right now as we speak, just as I commanded her to. I need word from her first before I can proceed with the next step."

Raising an eyebrow lightly, Pride asked curiously, "Who's Dante?"

Father noted Pride's increasing liveliness from the curious tone in his voice. "Someone you will meet soon. She can be considered as Mother to all of you homunculi, almost the way that I am Father, but not quite the same in her case. She's very knowledgeable and loyal to the cause, and has been that way since the beginning. Envy and her get along quite well, better than they do with the other homunculi. There are practical reasons for this…" Father looked directly at Pride now, deciding to drop any further explanations. "It's about time you explore the upper world. Envy will go along with you, tell him I commanded it. He will know exactly where to take you. Also, you both should refrain from attacking any humans for now, today's trip is just for you to see how humans act."

Pride was excited to see how the upper world was, but he didn't really like the idea of going with Envy. Still, he was only a newborn, so to speak, and couldn't just venture out there alone without knowing about it first. He needed to know how to come back without getting lost.

The front of Central Command Headquarters was flooded with at least eighty military officers of various positions of power, though they mostly consisted of regular foot soldiers. Among these soldiers was First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, first in command lieutenant under the currently-missing General Roy Mustang. They were all looking for a few important people that went missing under a day ago. Half of them checked all over the building and found no signs of them, even though they were last seen going to Bradley's office. The other half decided to check around the outside of the structure, and yet again they found no signs of them. Almost all of the search team congregated to the front of the building, where Hawkeye was keeping watch and waiting for any reports.

Sure enough, a regular officer came up to her with unfortunate news, saluting to her first before talking. "Lieutenant Hawkeye, the investigation of both the inside and outside of the building is almost over. All of us in the search team agreed that there were no signs of any of the individuals missing. Fuhrer King Bradley and General Roy Mustang were nowhere to be found, neither was Colonel Edward Elric or his brother Alphonse Elric. We apologize for the lack of evidence on their whereabouts, but we're trying as best as we can."

"That'll be alright soldier, I understand. Let the search team off on a respite now."

Another soldier came up to her moments after, also saluting, and looking a little excited. "Finally! Some of the soldiers from the inside came back from the Fuhrer's office."

"And what's the result? No signs of him at all?"

"Indeed, the Fuhrer did not return to his office since very early morning. And it looks like the committee has finally reached a quick conclusion in response to his abnormal absence."

"Understood, soldier. Thank you for the information. You should also take a rest." She replied formally.

"Thank you First Lieutenant Hawkeye. Please take a rest as well. You've been searching nonstop for all four of them nonstop the whole day…" The soldier responded in a caring but professional tone, and then walked off to the rest of the team.

Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc then walked up to her moments later, noting her slight distress, even though she hid it well. "Hmm, it's strange…almost like they disappeared off the face of the planet. Have they really disappeared, just like that?"

Hawkeye narrowed her eyes a little at that response. "Is that really what you think, Havoc?"

Havoc's expression tensed with uncertainty, as he looked away slightly. "I don't know… What else could have happened, then? Did chaos occur within one night that resulted in this? There must be some sign of them, even if there's a huge possibility that they're all…" He stopped his sentence when Hawkeye gave him a murderous look. "Nevermind…it was silly of me to even suggest that, I apologize. I'll wait out here for you, then we'll join the others." He walked to the front of the building with other soldiers.

Meanwhile, in the bushes and trees near Central Command, Envy and Pride were looking at the soldiers in the distance. Envy's hair made him blend in more, while Pride's did not have that much of an effect. In the current sunset, though, they might have had some effect.

Envy was chuckling to himself, savoring the confusion and misery that surrounded the assemblage in front of the building. "Hehehe, stupid humans… What are they trying to do, dig them out? By the looks of it, they seem to be getting rather desperate to find their missing Fuhrer and their precious state alchemists. Aren't they being stupid, or what, Pride?"

Pride himself was really confused over the sight he was witnessing, and also confused by the fact that Envy seemed to be enjoying himself because of it. Those humans far below look like moving blue ants. So puny and pathetic, exactly portraying how weak and insignificant they really are. Pride said nothing to the ill-tempered homunculus brother he'd rather not be around, thinking about how strangely familiar the building was even though he's never been out of the lair before today. Or so he thought.

"Hey…Pride." That snapped him out of his thoughts immediately, remembering how cranky Envy can get when not listened to. "Don't be so quiet…don't you have any thoughts about all this?" Envy's true intent was to taunt Pride with these questions, even though he didn't exactly want a proper response from him. He knew how much he could tease Pride in such a way without him figuring out about his past. He wanted to rub Edward's past in his face, without giving out any revealing hints. And Pride, mostly fresh from his 'birth' only hours ago and now under an amnesiac state, was none the wiser. Despite this, the new homunculus still detected bad intent from Envy constantly, and couldn't understand why.

He finally spoke, shrugging off any feelings of paranoia. "About the humans…the ones down there. What exactly…is their connection to us?"

Envy did a mock facepalm, hiding part of his forming smirk. "You've really lost it all up there pipsqueak, haven't you?"

There was that nickname again, Pride realized. When he saw one particular soldier down below, one that looked quite familiar, he felt a sting in his head. "Ngh…" He clenched his hands and closed his eyes shut.

"I see that word still has an effect on you…but you don't seem angry at all. I thought you would still be sensitive to that word, in contrast to the name you have now." Envy scowled slightly. He hoped that wasn't the case, he wanted the runt to forget his past entirely. So internally he promised himself he wouldn't call him that anymore, or at least as little as possible, just to be sure.

Pride paid attention to barely anything that Envy just said, fortunately for the green-haired homunculus. Instead, he saw a faint vision of blinding white light and a boy with dirty-blond hair within it. This occurred a few seconds before his mind and vision cleared up. He clutched his head and clenched his jaw shut until the pain subsided. "Who…was that?! So familiar…"

Envy, not really sure what Pride was going through, had to force himself to stay quite now. He didn't want to bring up anything that might make Pride remember.

Rise now and ever  
Leave your memory

After the pain subsided, he asked, "What…are we doing here?" Pride faced Envy with a slightly irritated tone.

Envy responded in a similar tone. "Why, you already want to leave?" Envy fell silent immediately, thinking that it might be best that they did leave. "That's right, there's nothing important here. Let's go." Envy faced around and started to walk away. Pride did not follow though, he was stuck observing one particular soldier again. A female one with blond hair and sherry-brown eyes. Envy noticed no presence following behind him and looked back, noticing Pride was glaring down below again. "Pride, what is it now?! Let's go!" Envy scolded him lowly.

Pride did not like Envy's tone but obeyed, responding in an annoyed tone. "Al-alright…_brother_. Coming."

Envy's own irritation was rising again. He didn't want to be called 'brother' by the likes of him. Without warning, Envy rushed up and backhanded him, making Pride thud onto the floor and onto his side. He clutched his hurting face, staring wide eyed at Envy with a slight scowl. Envy stared at him with subsiding anger present on his face, which was immediately replaced by a look of satisfaction. While Pride kept looking at him, Envy noticed his eyes' shape was more narrow and threatening. That's not all, Envy may have imagined this, but he could've sworn he finally saw small irises form within the murky gold pools of Pride's eyes.

"You look absolutely pathetic… Get up." Envy walked slowly ahead, not waiting to see Pride stand up. He knew the runt would obey him, because he knew no other way of going back to the lair without his guidance, and the way back was complicated enough.

Pride stood up and followed him a good distance away, staring at Envy's back angrily. He whispered very lowly that only he could hear, "_No thanks to you…**Envy.**_"

What they didn't expect was that same female soldier noticing them in the distance.

Hawkeye, who had great eyesight, also had good enough hearing to pick up background sounds in the distance, which is what also what made her an excellent gun soldier. She saw two figments fighting in the shrubs on a hill near Central Command's right side. She looked at them intently, primarily focusing on the blonde's face. As the blonde stood up, she saw part of his face and alarms rang in her head in response to his familiarity. She runs forward a few feet and says out loud, "That's…!"

Havoc, standing at the entrance of C.C., kept a close eye on her. He rushed to her immediately after her outburst. "Hawkeye, what is it?"

"Look over there! I think I saw two people, one of them looked like Edward!" She pointed a finger at the place where the two figures were. Havoc responded in kind, looking at the direction where her finger pointed.

Unfortunately, he saw no one. "Where?! I can't see a thing in that mini forest. You sure?"

Hawkeye looked surprised, crossing her arms in irritation. "Maybe I saw wrong…"

"I think it's about time we, especially you, went inside and took a break. It's getting late and I'd rather you not stress over them out here."

Hawkeye nodded. "Alright Havoc, I do need a rest. But I will not give up until I find signs of any one of them, though. My search will continue later."

Havoc sighed tiredly. "Fine, but not without me you won't."

Hawkeye looked at the bushes again, with a sad expression. "Alright, fine… Just go inside without me, I promise I'll come in a few minutes. I need to get my mind cleared up first."

Havoc looked at her questioningly, then nodded moments later, knowing best not to question any further.

When she was completely alone, she rubbed her temple and then looked around. "Roy, Edward, Alphonse, where have you all gone?" She looked to the shrubs again. "Maybe I should go home and take a nap… But I get this uncanny feeling that I should continue my search tonight…or else I might be too late to save at least one of them." She walked into the building slowly, only thinking about the search that would continue later.

Pride, like other homunculi, had healing and regenerative powers. He noticed this immediately after he stood up from the ground. The pain on his face disappeared seconds later. He carefully followed Envy's trail and carefully kept note of the twists and turns they took this time. They were sneakily walking around the streets of Central. Right before night time fell, Envy decided to have them explore the outskirts of Central's main city. Apparently, he felt like Pride hadn't gotten enough of human life, and did this intentionally in order to waste time. He knew Father said to report back to him as soon as he saw a significant change in Pride, but he didn't really care right now. He wanted to continue taunting Pride, giving him a taste of the life he once had but has now forgotten, to add insult to injury towards his subconscious. What he found most interesting from the whole experience was seeing what reactions he had, which mostly consisted of genuine curiosity. But Envy didn't question him anything further, he only smirked.

When they returned to the lair later on, Pride was shown to his own room, much to Envy's relief. Father didn't ask him to do anything else other than rest, right after he noticed the change in Pride's eyes. The blonde sin briefly heard Envy talking with Father about a 'Wrath', which he automatically realized was another homunculus. Pride, not being able to sleep anymore as a homunculus, just sat on his bed waiting for the hours to go by, contemplating on events that transpired earlier that day.

'_Why do I…feel so empty and…lost?_' He thought, while sitting quietly on the bed. He then lied down, but suddenly noticed his skort was itching him when he did that. '_I really hate this annoying thing… Pants would feel much better to wear… I don't want to be a copycat of that green-haired jerk._'

And during the following days, spent mostly occupying his room in private and sometimes lingering some parts of the lair he hasn't seen before, he saw not a glimpse of any other homunculus except Envy. And things suddenly became too quiet and boring. Father called upon him a couple of times too, with some repeat of past requests. Other than that, it was too quiet for him, but he had to bare with it. Father said he needed the peace and relaxation to become more accustomed to himself, before he was sent above ground again

Father sent them out again on the same exact type of trip to the upper world almost a week later. But this time, he sent them out during the night. He claimed it would be a totally different experience for Pride.

They were walking in dark spots, like they did almost a week ago, so that they wouldn't be seen. Envy had to be careful to make sure they kept a low profile. He didn't want any more military scum seeing them, especially at such a critical time. They were searching all over the place looking for the four who have gone missing. Edward being one of them, along with the alchemist general Envy told Sloth to discard somewhere in an alley. He figured his body should have been found by now, but even he wasn't sure. However, he didn't dwell too much on that, nor did he care to.

Envy was bored, so he thought of a way to pester Pride without telling him too much. "You know Pride, about that stone in your arm, do you even know how it was created?"

Pride stopped walking and looked at him cluelessly. He shook his head. "No, Envy, I don't. How was it made?"

'_Naive brat took the bait._' Envy chuckled. "Oh, you actually don't, huh? I guess our old man didn't find you trustworthy enough to tell you yet, and here I thought you were his greatest creation." Envy laughed aloud, mocking him. "Maybe one day, when you grow up some more and truly become one of us, you'll find out. Right now you're just a weakling, you might even hurt your brain too much if you found out." Envy knew he might piss Pride off, but he also knew that the newbie runt wouldn't do anything to him either. For the jealous homunculus, it was just so much fun antagonizing the younger homunculus. To make him feel inferior in any way he could, despite the high status name he was given. Envy, with his jealousy and hatred of him, thought it was all an ironic joke. He thought it was ridiculous how such a spineless and clueless midget of an alchemist was given the greatest sin name of all. Edward had grown to almost the same height as Envy is now, with Envy at 5 foot and 5 inches, and Edward almost an inch shorter. Despite this, the green-haired sin still couldn't help but think of him in such a way. Envy can always shapeshift himself to be taller if he wanted to, just to add more insult to injury towards Edward's memory.

Pride's tolerance for the green-haired loudmouth was running thin. But he's starting to realize it's best to not giving him the attention he wanted or else Pride would get his ass kicked by him again. Instead, he responded reasonably. "We should…head back to Father. I've had enough sight-seeing for one day." Pride's voice was not completely monotone anymore, it was becoming more expressive by the day, and by the hour. He was now able to speak in full sentences and sound quite intelligent. Both Father and Envy noticed this over the course of the past few days.

"Wait." Envy took hold of his arm and stopped him. "There's someone here, a human…" Envy listened again. "Two of them, in fact. I think you know what to do."

Pride looked at him surprised, shrugging off Envy's hold and not wanting to be touched. "But Father said—"

"Fuck what he said, you need to grow a backbone and stop listening to everything that comes out of his mouth. And it's better to do so as soon as possible. Here are your first victims. Before you know it, you'll soon enjoy killing humans as much as I do."

Pride was getting visible irritated by now. "Fine. I'll do your damn request, if it means you'll stop insulting me."

Envy's eyes widened when he noticed Pride's attitude changed somewhat. '_He almost sounded like…his past self, but he doesn't seem to be aware of it at all._' Envy sneered. "I don't promise anything, pipsqueak. This process is to make you one of us, the proper way. And if you don't do as I say, you'll always be daddy's little treasured **pet**." He heard Pride clap. "Wait, what are you doing?!" Envy became tense with surprise after hearing the infamous alchemy clap, thinking Pride was going to attack him. So he made himself be ready for anything that might happen.

"It's something Father taught me. I'm materializing a scythe out from my mind's eye." And sure enough, the scythe appeared out of nowhere next to his right hand. He was able to hear exactly where the humans went. After consuming the stones, he also gained increased hearing, but it took a while to actually take effect. He ran to the noise, leaping onto buildings to further expand his line of vision. Envy shrugged off his momentary tension and followed him, but at his own slower pace.

The humans are a couple, a man and woman who were drunk beyond their minds, most likely on their way home so late. Pride noticed they were in such a clumsy, unaware state, not paying attention much to their surroundings and without a care in the world. '_They won't know what hit them._' He thought with, what he felt like was, absolute glee.

"Hey, Char-Charles, I think-k I hearrrrd some-thing…" The woman said between hiccups and some slurring.

"Wh-ere darrrrr-ling?" The man also slurred his words. Before he could turn around, the assault came crashing down on them before they were aware of anything. Pride attacked the man first, slicing his body in half vertically and unequally, blood spurting out of him almost like a water fountain. The woman seemed to have snapped out of her drunken state when she witnessed this and started emitting a blood-curdling scream. The outburst was short lived, lasting only a second when Pride struck her down immediately, decapitating her. Pride's face ended up having runny droplets of their fresh blood, but not so much on his body.

Envy came shortly after that. He whistled at the site. He didn't expect the runt to have this kind of ferocity in him and so soon. "Bravo, Pride. Now clean up your face, you got their blood all over you."

"Blood?" One droplet was running dangerously close to his lips. Before he could wipe it off, it entered his mouth. He tasted the blood, and Envy watched curiously. Pride wipe the rest of the blood off with his gloveless finger. He continued tasting the blood, savoring it, becoming satisfied, and wanting more all at once. He licked off all the blood from his fingers, making noises of pure ecstasy. "Mmm, more, MORE…" He jumped onto the dead bodies, lapping up enough blood from the woman's severed head and opened up neck. He consumed as much blood as he could from her corpse first, before he proceeded to the other one.

Envy was genuinely stunned and amazed at the sight of Pride going crazy over human blood! He never expected this to happen. While side-glancing at Pride, he also witnessed his pupils change in size now, becoming longer and wider within his darkening gold-amber pupils. Envy also realized that he could use this side of Pride to his advantage. He was sure his bloodlust would change him into a cold-blooded killer much faster than anything else Envy could ever think of. Imagination wasn't really his strong suit, and whatever patience he had was even less present. Envy was always trying to get the job done as quick as possible, even if it meant no actual pleasure came out of it. But isn't that what the sin 'envy' was about, destroying everything someone else enjoys just because you don't have it? After putting his new plans aside in his mind, he suddenly remembered that if they make any more noise, unwanted attention might come to them, in the form of military dogs no less. And while this situation was becoming completely out of hand, this trip above their lair was meant to be a quite learning experience for Pride. Envy honestly did not care what Father told them, what he cared about were the consequences of disobeying him.

"We need to leave NOW, Pride. PRIDE?!" Envy pulled at Pride left arm, trying to get his attention. Envy noticed another uncanny thing. While Envy was normally super strong, and obviously stronger than Pride was hours ago, he wasn't able to pull Pride away from his feeding frenzy. It was as if the blood was making him super powered and was almost fixated in that spot like a megaton stone. Envy, now getting angry, had no choice but to knock out Pride in the head. "Stop. Drinking. Blood. NOW." Envy punched his face at each word. Pride actually snapped out of it after the last word.

"Huh?! What…just happened…?" He stood up, looking genuinely confused and back-peddling from the corpses slowly. Envy noticed that the front of Pride's body was all covered in blood. But what he knew was that they needed to leave, **immediately**. He heard more humans in the near distance, most likely military goons. And even if they were just normal citizens, he didn't want anyone seeing them and then running off to any dogs and giving their descriptions as the suspects responsible for this slaughter. At least, for Pride, not yet anyways. What concerned him was what Father might do if he found out that Envy had a huge role to play in Pride's deliberate disobeying of his orders. Today was not supposed to be a mission day, they crossed that line already.

"You've consumed human blood and gone insane, that's what! We need to leave **now**, we can't risk having any humans seeing us together like this."

"Why, are you scared of them? It's like you said, they are weaklings." Envy was actually getting a bit spooked at Pride, but he tried so hard not to show anymore fear to the likes of Pride, who, he reminded to himself, was the homunculus of the short alchemist brat that he absolutely despised.

Envy rolled his eyes. "Of course they are! But we took this too far, I did not expect this to happen. Father will get mad if he sees you like this." Pride only looked at Envy inattentively while he licked off any blood he saw on his right arm.

"I thought you said you didn't care what he told us. You should say what you mean next time." Pride stood up and dematerialized his scythe. "Let's go."

"No, wait, we're not going back to the lair yet until you get cleaned up. You look like absolute shit." A thought was then put forth in his mind. He suddenly realized that Sloth could help, she practically transforms into a living body of water. Envy then realized that would still be futile, because if Father noticed that Pride's irises grew to such a large size so soon he will want to know how that happened. But even so, Pride, couldn't go back 'home' looking like this. As for Sloth, Envy wondered where exactly she would be, whether she was in the lair, or in the sewers leading up to it? "Let's go, I have an idea. You're about to be introduced to another homunculus, a female one who appears older than you and I, but is not that old compared to my actual age. You might even see the newest Wrath nearby too, he's been nearby pestering her almost nonstop. Despite how young he looks, he's actually been walking around longer than you have and only recently were we able to get a hold of him and add him to our…'family'." As much as it was true, Envy hated using the word 'family' to describe their group. He said all of this with an indifferent tone, despite how uncannily conversational he may have sounded to Pride. Envy didn't actually give a damn about the new Wrath. In fact, ever since discovering the brat days ago he's been a pain in his ass to deal with. He is such a wild child with no discipline.

Pride immediately thought there was something strange in the way he described this Wrath having been 'recently brought here'. '_What does he mean by 'added him to our family recently'? I thought Father was the only one who created us homunculi…_' That fleeting thought ended abruptly when Envy started running to the closest entrance leading to their lair. Pride had no choice but to follow, so after dematerializing his scythe, he soon caught up with him in no time.

They ran to the lair without being seen, thanks to their super-human agility. Pride was literally energized now, moving faster than Envy. Envy never once thought about consuming blood to increase his power. He figured it might've been due to the fact that Pride was a different type of homunculus, as Father admitted before, and maybe only homunculi like Pride were able to have an insatiable liking to human blood. Envy noted to himself to ask Father about this later.

When they reached underground, into the sewers leading up to the lair, Envy called out, "SLOTH. Come here now, we need help." This was where Sloth lurked, since the sewers were full of water and she could blend into it easily, starting surprise attacks at any time against intruders foolish enough to enter deeper. They couldn't allow intruders to bypass this far underground, or else there was a huge risk of having their lair right under Central Command Headquarters be discovered by the wrong people.

This was not their only lair, though. Years ago, they actually had full control of Lab 5 as their second closest, but otherwise unofficial, lair to Central, where all their criminal experiments of stone and chimera creations occurred unwarranted. They had the lab as their second important lair even before Father took control of them. But he went a step further and created the closest lair to Central when he took leadership, which was the one right underneath Central Command and the one they mainly stayed in today. The last lair, which was located much farther away from Central, was a building in the forgotten underground city in Northern Amestris. The whole city was concealed underground centuries ago when Hohenheim and Dante created a huge Philosopher's Stone out of that city's whole population. To prevent others from discovering the truth about what happened to the city, they both used their advanced alchemic abilities to drag the whole city underground and hide it forever. Years later, Amestris was created from the 'absent' ruins. Dante also has a home in the forests outside of Dublith, but that has been long since abandoned.

"Um, where is she, exactly?" Pride looked around them.

Envy responded, "Anywhere in the water. She hides in it, looking out for any intruders."

They heard some splashing nearby. "We, Envy?" Sloth materialized into her solid form behind them. They turned around. She noticed Pride and smiled. "Oh, so this is what Father did with him. How ironic." Envy glared at her, giving her a silent warning to not say much in front of Pride. "What do you need Envy?" Pride, with what little amount of human blood left on his body drying up, gave her a curious stare for a moment, then shrugged it off.

"Isn't it obvious? Just look at him, he's goddamn filthy. Apparently, he has an extreme addiction to blood. He hasn't even reacted this crazy to the red stones he ate before. Clean him up, we can't risk Father seeing him like this."

"May I ask why you're trying to hide this from Father?"

"And if I don't answer you? What then, huh? I don't see you as the snitching type…" Envy's irritation was reaching to high levels now, so he finally cut to the chase. "**Will you do it or not**?!"

Sloth told him flatly, "It's best not to hide things from him, you know how he gets when we disobey orders or keep secrets from him. Remember what happened to Greed? You may have the same fate."

"Yea well you know what? Tough shit, I'm sick and tired of following my old man's orders as if I'm just as much of a low-class pawn as you other homunculi. Well I'm not, I know more than all of you newer homunculi combined. I'm not his stupid lapdog, I was high on the ladder for **centuries** before he came into the picture again! And then I got _Pride _here, who I'd rather not have been stuck with at all."

Pride glared daggers at the back of Envy's head. '_The feeling's mutual, asshole…_'

Sloth only shrugged her shoulders, "If you insist, it was becoming too boring around here anyways. But if he finds out, I want none of the blame on my hands." Sloth transformed her body into water and started cleaning up every blood spot on Pride that she could find. "You behave now, Pride." After she finished, she smiled at him almost genuinely. Something sparked in Pride's eyes, almost as if he was experiencing déjà vu. Whatever he was feeling at the moment was cut short by someone's yell.

"Mommy!" A voice called out far away in the sewers. "Where are you?!"

"Oh great, it's the annoying brat. I thought Father told him to stop pestering you while you're on watch! I'm going to set him straight myself if he keeps this up."

"The little fool still believes I'm his mother, when I care for no one. The woman who brought him to life died years ago from her own ailment. Of course, he might never find out about it…" Envy narrowed his eyes at her, more intensely this time, silently warning her once again to pick her words carefully.

Pride spoke up lowly, trying to comprehend what she meant but failed. "The woman who brought him to life?" Pride smelled something fishy in the way she spoke, but he still couldn't figure out why.

"I should be going now, wouldn't want Wrath to distract me again." Sloth fully turned into water and descended into the sewer waters below her.

Envy grabbed Pride's arm, forcing him to walk. "Let's go Pride. Sloth is busy, and so are we."

"What did she mean?" Pride resisted the urge to shrug off Envy's grip, speaking with slight annoyance.

"She's speaking nonsense, ignore her and follow me. We're about to see Wrath." Envy was looking for Wrath. Sure enough, they both found him running towards their direction. He looked frantic and excited.

"Where is she?! I know I heard her here somewhere! Mommy!" His voice echoed all over the sewers.

Envy quickly stomped up to him and kicked him in the stomach, knocking him into the dirty waters below. "You stupid brat, don't you ever listen?! The old man told you to leave her alone. She's busy, and she's certainly not your mother, you delusional tool."

Wrath sat up and looked away with disdain. "You have a mommy, **why can't I?!**" Wrath said angrily with a pout, glaring at Envy.

Envy knew what Wrath was talking about. "Dante isn't my mother or anyone else's mother. Homunculi **don't have **parents, you imbecile, we were created beings from the Gate. How many times do you have to be reminded of that? Get in line and start behaving or else Father will get pissed off."

Wrath stood up and ran off with a growl. "Leave me alone! I'm not going back there again!" Wrath was referring to the Gate. He remembered the last time he was brought there. Father told him there was a good reason for his recent visit to the Gate. It resulted in Wrath's mismatched arm and leg being amputated, which was excruciating for him. But then, almost immediately, the Gate gave him new limbs as replacements, thanks to Father's almost supernatural control over it. These new limbs actually matched his body, so much so that he assumed Father found the exact same limbs he left behind within the mysterious door. Father also kept Wrath's alchemy ability intact, despite losing the very arm that enabled it. The limbs Father found on Wrath were none other than Edward's human ones. Father was able to bypass the Gate's laws with his alchemy somehow, but Wrath couldn't explain it all nor did he care to find out. He was just glad to leave the place that brought on his worst nightmares. Unfortunately, despite all the knowledge he's amassed from the Gate, Father could not add in powers into Wrath, since he's already been born a while ago, and wasn't at the stage where he could develop powers anymore. Wrath, like Envy, are from the original type of homunculus, with Pride was considerably different.

Envy suddenly didn't give a damn what Wrath would do next. He always had little patience, and he couldn't waste any more time on someone he considered to be an annoying troublemaker. Sloth would have to deal with him herself from now on. He had Pride to focus on now. "Insufferable brat, if he wants to run off to Gate knows where without caring about the consequences, then so be it. I already told him to grow up from his weird fantasies."

Pride and Envy continued walking deep into the lair. Something was still bothering Pride, though. He just got his first taste of blood, and now he wants to know more about humans. They seem so similar to him and other homunculi, yet they were so breakable, so _weak_. He noticed that homunculi were much better beings in terms of power and durability. He even heard Envy mocking them a few times during the past week. The green-haired homunculus always acted irritated at almost everything and everyone. And still, Pride had to admit that he was right about the beings who looked so much like them in so many ways, yet were different on almost every other level.

"Envy…you never told me something, about the humans. What exactly is their purpose? Do they exist only to cater to us? I wasn't fully aware of what I was doing before when I was feeding on their blood, but is that what they are? Our food?"

Envy turned around and sneered sardonically at the thought of talking about humans. "In more than one way, they are. They are the dog shit we're supposed to scrape off our feet, the puppets we bend to our will, our unwilling servants used in our overall plans."

Pride added his two cents. "You mean like…tools we can use and break whenever we want? Is that right, too?"

Envy smiled wickedly. "Well Pride, it seems you're finally catching on! That's just one other way we're supposed to treat them, with complete and utter contempt and disrespect. As nothing but a bunch of maggots infesting a corpse. Don't you ever forget that whenever you encounter them."

No one can touch us

Pride followed Envy deeper into the sewers, now with a smile. It wasn't that he was glad at making Envy happy, it was more along the lines of him feeling satisfied himself. Somehow, making condescending remarks about humans elevated his own mood. He was truly starting to believe what he and Envy were saying. Consuming human blood also changed him somewhat, it made him more cold underneath his temporary calm persona. And it made him want even more blood, but he suppressed these feelings. He knew there would always be next time, when they were finally sent on a murderous mission.

They returned to Father shortly, looking at the older blonde man sitting on his throne in silence.

"You two returned rather late. Did something happen?" Father said stoically.

Envy decided to speak up about Pride, with more courage than he had before. "He underwent a change. Look at his eyes, you can clearly see his pupils now. Just earlier today they were only long, thin slits. They obviously changed in size, compared to the last time we went exploring." Envy spoke with feigned confidence, trying to keep the previous incident that led up to this change a secret. And then he heard the very thing he was hoping Father wouldn't say, but expected anyways.

"I see. Did anything happen that brought on this change at all?" Father looked from Pride to Envy as he said this, waiting for the older homunculus to tell him everything. To his surprise, Pride spoke instead.

"We saw two humans walking together so late." Envy, who was standing a little behind Pride's left side, tensed up when he heard this. "They're nothing like us, right Father? They really are such weak things, but I don't understand why they look so much like us."

Envy wanted to smack his forehead in frustration. '_You idiot, shut up…!_'

Father raised an eyebrow after hearing Pride describe his observations about humans. "You certainly pay much attention to your surroundings, for a young homunculus only days old. It seems you've proven to me yet again that I have not made a mistake naming you Pride." Father nodded. "You are indeed correct, my son. Humans are lower than us on the power spectrum. We are their guiding masters working in the shadows, leading them to where we want them to go. Only a few humans, if any, have ever been capable enough to stand on their own. Usually, these humans who were worthy enough have only been alchemists of centuries past, the alchemists who have shown immense skill in the science, like Dante has. Other great humans were mostly those lost to history, existing only in the mostly unknown corners of the past. Today, barely any other humans exist which are of high worth. For homunculi, humans are their food source."

"Our food source, huh? Do they have anything to do with the Philosopher's Stone?" Pride asked, genuinely curious.

"The Philosopher's Stone, the first stone you received under your mark, is made from the concentrated transmutation of vast amounts of humans into one combined source of seemingly unlimited power. That is why foolish alchemist humans chase after it, without knowing what its components are. Despite how much power the stone has, even it has limits. The latest stone, through the indirect guidance of Dante, was created just a few years ago from the lives of at least 1000 humans, but it has since been used up by her to make her retain a youthful appearance and a longer life in her current body. However, the stones within you and the other homunculi are actually stones taken out from within me. I have enough power from my main stone to be able to share the power with all of you. My main stone initially had over a million human lives, before I divided the stone to give to each and every one of you. The smaller philosopher's stones are to make sure you all are powerful enough at all times, without relying only on their weaker imitation, the red stones."

Pride's face became quizzical. "Red stones? You mean the stones you fed me after giving me my philosopher's stone?"

Father nodded again. "Yes Pride, one red stone has a very miniscule amount of energy, not even enough to keep a homunculus at their highest power. That is why it's recommended for our kind to have a philosopher's stone as a main source of power, to prevent our energy from running out quickly. Never take your stone out. The red stones you consume will be converted into a liquid known as red water once they enter your internal energy storage system, but not immediately. This liquid is poisonous to humans, but not to us. Each stone takes time to liquefy, depending on when it was consumed and what its size is. The faster they are liquefied, the more quickly activated your energy will be, even though bigger red stones give you more energy in the long run. The red stones are mostly potent energy, but when liquefied the energy becomes active and ready for homunculi to use as a power source. In this way, the energy of the red stones can be considered as a temporary replacement to any lost energy from the philosopher's stone. Even so, you must use that energy wisely. We can't let the human lives from the philosopher's stone go to waste."

Pride interjected quickly, "Why not though? Don't humans only exist to serve us for as long as we want? Can't we always add more human lives into the philosopher's stones?"

Father shook his head. "I'm afraid it's not so simple, that is a huge risk to the stone and the process rarely, if ever, ends up succeeding. Though humans are plentiful and are of lesser substance than us, this task is near impossible to attempt correctly. Even someone the likes of me would have a hard time attempting it successfully, because it literally means transforming a living thing into part of an already existing energy source. Using both red stones and philosopher's stones at the same time is the best way to store up energy efficiently without wasting any or very little energy from the philosopher's stone. In each homunculus, the philosopher's stone is placed right underneath each of your ouroborous marks. That is why yours was placed in your left shoulder."

Envy has since relaxed when Pride changed the subject. They were only going on about the stones. Pride didn't mention anything about their encounter with the humans, he only said that he saw them. But Envy didn't want to hear anymore. The conversation was also annoying him. He didn't want to hear something he already knew about. And he didn't care to hear about details which added on to the overall explanation either. He was not an alchemist at heart and never wanted to be, so this is all useless jargon to him.

"So, the creation of the philosopher's stones are the only reason for why we need them?"

"There will be more uses for them in the future. Right now, their main importance to us is their life energy used to make the stones. May I ask why you have so much interest in them? Did something else happen when you saw the humans?"

Pride responded, thoughtfully. "Well, actually…"

Envy improvised as quickly as possible with his own explanation. "Pride couldn't shut up about the ones we saw above, and kept asking me many questions about them like he is now asking you. It's probably because he's still young and can't control his curio-"

Father faced him with an irritated expression. "I asked Pride, not you Envy."

Pride didn't know what to say exactly. If he told the truth, Envy would kick his ass later. He was still a young homunculus, and even after consuming all that blood, he was still nowhere near as powerful as his green-haired 'brother'. Then again, Pride himself was starting to get agitated at Envy's malicious treatment of him. It was better for him to tell some the truth to Father in the long run. Unlike Envy, at least Father treated him with care, he realized.

"Actually, something else did happen…and I can't explain why." Pride refused to look behind him at the now tensed up Envy, for fear of losing his courage under his 'brother's' pissed off gaze. "I just suddenly…went insane. Humans were close by. I killed them, and some of their blood got into my mouth. Then my mind got clouded with thoughts of feeding on their blood. I got into a frenzy and started drinking up a lot of their blood. My mind was totally unaware of my actions and surroundings when that happened. Envy got me out of it after I don't know how long. We headed straight here immediately after, before any other humans saw us." Pride didn't actually tell him the whole truth. He left out the important detail of Envy actually **convincing **Pride to start the attack.

Father looked upset, but tried to hide most of his anger, remembering that Pride was only 'born' days ago, and hasn't had much contact with anyone else yet. "I thought I told you both not to attack any humans." He looked directly at Envy and continued, in a chastising manner. "He was not ready yet."

Envy moved forward, shoving past Pride's left arm, and walked closer to Father. Pride really hated this petty, demeaning treatment, but stayed silent nonetheless. "Don't you think I tried to prevent him? He's more unpredictable and crazy than we thought." Envy lied, playing along with the half-truthful story Pride told Father. "At least the blood fest was what made his irises grow larger."

Father narrowed his eyes at him. "You should have told me that from the start, Envy."

Envy cringed at his tone. "I know… I just didn't think it was that big of a deal… And he's becoming more like the rest of us."

Father sighed. "Next time, do not keep secrets from me. I need to know **everything **that happens with Pride when he's out of my reach. You should already know that I do not tolerate secrets well. That applies to you too, Pride. Envy, you need to be his role model and mentor."

Envy, cringing at the last few words with veiled disgust, said nothing else. Pride said something instead. "I understand Father, I won't forget your commands from now on."

"Good." Father looked at the green-haired homunculus, dismissing him. "Envy, leave for now. We will talk later."

Envy looked away from Father with a sullen expression. "Y-yes…_Father_." Envy spoke the last word with light scorn, not really caring much if Father noticed, and then walked out of the room with a faint stomp. He wanted to punch Pride right now, or maybe even someone as annoying as Wrath. He made sure to be as far as he could from there at the moment. After finding the nearest punchable thing, which was a wall, he hit that instead, leaving a small crater. Envy bent his head over, breathing rapidly with his current anger engulfing all his thoughts, hand still connected to the ruined wall.

"Fucking pipsqueak doesn't know when to keep his annoying mouth shut! Even as a homunculus he pisses me off to no end." Envy tried to calm himself. He then remembered, "I need to become more patient, if I plan to change the little blonde shit into a complete monster. The type of vengeance I need to inflict on him needs to be long-term. Whatever pathetic weakling human friends of his that are still alive will feel all the brunt of my fury, by **his** own hands! The irony of it all will entertain me forever." He made sure that the next time he got his hands on Pride, whether it was hours or days from now, he would give him a good beating. He had to be careful though, he didn't want to be too rough in case Father heard him or the runt somehow made a surprising comeback. Envy didn't want to admit it, but Pride's immediate newly-found abilities and behavior made him even more cautious around the blonde homunculus now.

ENDING NOTE: The song (and even album) name used is "Waking The Fallen", from Avenged Sevenfold. This certainly won't be the last time I use an A7X, as I'm a huge fan of theirs and that particular album sort of alludes to what I have in mind for this story's future chapters.

The song is here: watch?v=kWDnkGDRueE

I would appreciate it if you let me know what you guys think, I'd like to receive as much feedback as possible. And if there are any spelling/grammar mistakes, do NOT make that the only point in your feedback. I'd like to hear about my story TELLING, first and foremost.


	2. Seek and Destroy

Sorry for the wait everyone. My intention is to type up long chapters, so added onto that factor which is making me take as long as I am is the fact that real life issues have come up. But I certainly have not quitted yet, not by a long shot.

Before I start the chapter, here are some general pointers about my switches in writing style modes. These rules do not ALWAYS apply, but it does for the most part.

When something's written like this, it's just regular storytelling without dialogue and without any of the below modes; this makes up most of the chapters.

'_When something's written like this_', it's a statement from someone's thoughts OR if they are at the Gate 'speaking'.

"When something's written like this", it's just regular dialogue from the characters.

"_When something's written like this_", the character IS talking, but in a low tone or even whisper; and sometimes, lines like this could be used for flashbacks.

When something's written like this, then it is the lyrics from a song of my choosing, and each chapter will have at least one different song representing it.

"**When something's written like this**", the character is spewing words in a venomous or ferocious fashion, usually when they're pissed off or something else is happening to them…

_**When something's written like this**_, it's to tell the reader when part of the chapter is temporarily changing the storytelling to another time, place, etc.

More modes might be added. But also keep in mind the punctuations marks used at the end of sentences as well.

CHAPTER 2: Seek and Destroy

_**Days Earlier…**_

On the night of Pride's birth, Hawkeye and Havoc went through with their search plans during the dead of night. Both were getting tired from working in Central Headquarters all day looking for the missing tetrad. By now, Hawkeye had developed a mild headache from the stress of not finding any signs of them, but she was not willing to back down from searching today just yet. Not until she found at least _something _of importance. Havoc admitted he was getting tired, but he himself desperately wanted to find their friends and the Fuhrer and prepared accordingly by drinking a few cups of coffee. He would stick by Riza even until it was time for the sun to rise. H

The search team also found no signs of the missing four, however, they were dismissed earlier due to regular military work protocols. Jean and Riza were dismissed shortly after, when all the other higher rank officers were, and it was still very early in the evening. They tagged along with Breda, Falman and Fuery and discussed things very quickly with them, before the three soldiers headed for their dorms. Jean told them they would be searching around the city without them, but all four of them were given the same task by the military. They were supposed to read through some military paperwork that each of them were given by superiors in order to further find more clues about the Fuhrer's possible whereabouts. It was getting late soon, and the military couldn't search the city the whole night, so it was about time that they did 'quiet work' instead. Other military personnel of their status or lower were given the same 'homework'. Knowing about Havoc and Hawkeye's search and how it might take the whole night, they offered to help them out with their own stacks of paper. If the Fuhrer went missing the same day as Mustang, Edward and Alphonse, they all concluded that it was obviously more than just coincidence. But what was the connection? That is what they were trying to find out on their own, with and without the military's involvement at the same time.

Riza, head hurting yet so determined not to quit, and Jean, on hyper alert than usual due to the caffeine he's just consumed, are the very last soldiers wandering the city amongst the regular citizens. Jean offered her some coffee some time ago, but she declined, stating that it would make her headache worse. Jean only shrugged and smoked his cigarette at a faster rate than usual. Riza only rolled her eyes at Jean's slightly absurd behavior during such a dire time and reminded herself that the men in her close-knit military unit can be silly sometimes. Now was no laughing matter, finding the missing four was the only thing on her mind now and she couldn't be distracted nor lose any hope.

They were both armed with only their default rifles, given to them from the military to take with them to their own dorms or houses after leaving C.C. It was more for protection than actual military action, but they would have to do for now. They didn't want to arouse any suspicion from the superiors by asking for more heavy weaponry, and were efficient enough with any type of gun they used. Still in their blue uniforms, and only shortly having left the Headquarters, they blended in pretty well with the darkened environment of the city structures and the shadowy hues that covered them.

They did not worry about getting caught wondering the city late in the night, nor did they worry about the lenient curfew time that was set up for the dorm quarters. Soldiers were still allowed the freedom to explore the city after a day's work. But now, almost everyone in the military would be rushing to go to their dorms and start investigating every document they've received. Most of the underling soldiers probably thought that if they discovered something significant, they would get promoted. Riza and Jean know full well that it takes more than just passionate hard work to get a promotion, you need enough experience, a little bit of luck and learn how to kiss the rears of superiors at times. Of course, on rare occasions, soldiers are automatically promoted if they do something miraculous for the military or the nation in general.

Then, you have the State Alchemists who, in their own way, are in a class of their own and are more fluid on the military hierarchy ladder, transcending most of the normal rules of rank elevation. They are automatically made into Majors. They're very valuable to Amestrian politics because there are so few of them in the meantime, compared to the size of the whole military itself. And now that two very valuable Alchemists have gone missing, along with the Fuhrer at the same time, some the higher-ups have immediately become a little antsy and, if not, very concerned that the military's power has started to wane already. They know it's still much too soon to draw conclusion about their whereabouts, but they realize how suspicious it is for three famous military figures to go missing in the same time span.

The two officers looked in all directions and listened very closely to the environment. They detected nothing out of the ordinary everywhere they went, whether it was between buildings in the alleys or out on the open streets. They searched together throughout almost every corner and crevice, and after a couple of hours later they still found nothing. She didn't show it, but Riza was getting a bit uneasy and Havoc himself tensed up. They did not want to declare the search a failure just yet, so they decided to keep searching until the very end of Central if they needed to. Riza was speeding herself up a little more now, and Havoc took note of that. Her headache has gotten a little worse from what it was hours ago, but she made no note of it to Jean.

He pulled out what may have been his tenth cigarette so far tonight "No need to rush, Riza, you'll tire yourself out . If we find nothing tonight then there's always tomorrow night and our military documents to look through once we get back to the dorms."

"I understand Jean, but the faster we move the sooner we will cover more ground, and the city is not small." Then she turns around to face him and says lowly, "I just have a feeling that we will find something tonight if we change pace. And split up farther apart too, not just search alleyways across from each other. Don't worry too much about me, I'll be fine."

"You sure, Chieftess? But if we find someone, we won't be able to hear us call each other if we're too far apart. I knew we should've dragged one of the others with us, preferably Falman since he's a better gunman than the other two." Just then, they heard a noise coming closer to them. They turned to the noise and realized it was someone familiar running towards them.

"You called for me, Havoc?" The voice said in weak breaks of speech. It was none other than Falman himself. He stopped in front of them and drew in a succession of rapid breaths, indicating that he had a hard time running this much. "I figured you'd need one more, even though you both insisted otherwise." They only looked at him somewhat dumbfounded, with Havoc's cigarette almost falling out of his mouth. Vato's breathing started becoming more clear, and he spoke up again once he could. "What? I may be older now and more unfit for endurance, but I'm still a great gunman."

"Damn Vato, you gotta go easy on yourself, you're not young anymore. Anyways, at least you're here now, and we need all the help we can get. Riza decided on splitting, so I was thinking you go with her to the right and I go to the left. You got your hand gun on you, right?" Vato pulled out his gun, and showed it to Havoc. "Good." Jean looked around the area and noticed that citizens have finally went indoors. "With less people out now, this will work out better for us."

Riza nodded and spoke up. "We should meet up here on this same intersection if we haven't found anything by the time we finished searching all over the city. It might take us another couple of hours, so we should meet up then. If one of us finds something important the other should go looking for them." Vato and Jean nodded, and then all three headed towards their assigned directions.

Riza, with Vato, continued the search at a normal pace gain. She slowed down a bit once Vato joined in, being considerate of his age. He noticed how worried Riza appeared to be under her focused exterior and wanted to lighten up the mood somehow, despite him not being good with making others laugh. After a few moments, he spoke up. "He'll ruin himself permanently with the amount of cigarettes he smokes per hour. I saw many thrown to the ground on my way here." She only faced him and nodded, thinking the same thing, but did not say anything. Vato knew that cheering Riza would be futile, but he was still disappointed at his poor effort. They were both quiet for the remainder of the search and looking at opposite sides of the street.

Until they stumbled upon some evidence…

Riza was the first to find it. It was a small trail of darkened blood at the very end of a dead-end alleyway and ending somewhere behind a huge dumpster, from what she could tell. She had a good eye, spotting the dark blood from that far away. It was losing its freshness but it was still bright enough for her to see. She rushed towards it without alerting Vato, the suspense of it all making her overly zealous. The intensity of the situation only became worse when she became absolutely horrified at what she saw when she reached the end, and her previously calm exterior was all but gone. Behind the dumpster was a familiar military man lying flat and face first on the ground. The spiky, black hair looked damp, and the uniform was torn and bloody in many places. Riza immediately knew who it was and, with teary wide eyes, she quickly leaped to action by turning him around and putting his upper body onto her lap. She then noticed a very large, but closed up, wound on his lower stomach, which was now scabbing up but still fresh. Riza shook him a little and choked out the words, "General Mustang, sir?! Roy?! ROY?! Please, don't be…" She choked up a little, preventing herself from saying anything else. Her tears were falling down, cradling his head a few minutes and trying to calm down.

A few minutes later, Vato, obviously alarmed by the outburst, came running towards her direction. He planned to call out to her once he wasn't out in the open where the whole neighborhood would hear him. "Hawkeye, what…" He shut himself up as quickly as he spoke and looked in shock at the sight. He saw none other than Roy in her lap, out cold and injured, and her crying over him. "Oh no, Mustang…what have you gotten yourself into?" He didn't know what else to say to Hawkeye while she was expressing strong emotions like this, but it was completely understandable during such a dire situation. He knelt down in front of them and gripped onto one of Roy's wrists, checking for a pulse. While Roy's low body temperature alarmed him, it was the very weak pulse Vato detected from his superior that chilled him to the bone. Then he looked at the large wound on his midsection and noticed it was starting to scab into a large scar.

Riza raised up her head and looked at Vato with bloodshot eyes. "I…already felt for a pulse…on his neck…and his heartbeat is very slow. Vato, please tell me he will be alright, that he won't die…" She clutched onto Roy's hair tighter now, rocking slightly back and forth. "I promised him that he wouldn't die before I did, why did he have to disappear without asking for my assistance?!" She hunched forward over the fallen General and let out more tears.

Vato was deeply saddened by all this. However, he realized that not all was lost. He rubbed on Riza's back to comfort her. "He's still alive Riza, we still have time to save him. I will go get Havoc and then we'll all carry him to the hospital. It's not very far from here." Vato got up and ran off without getting a response. He knew Riza was not in the right state of mind to be making commands or decisions.

Riza, tears still flowing down from her eyes, tried to calm herself down by laying her head on Roy's chest and listening to his heartbeat, further confirming to her that he is still alive. She checked the scarring wound again and curiously said, "Could it be, that he closed up the wound with his alchemy?" Some of the tension from before dissipated from her being after making that assessment, but the overwhelming sorrow remained. All she could do now was wait for the others to return.

Once they did, Roy Mustang was carried to the hospital by all three of them, on foot. By that time, Riza has long since regained her composure, but her face still displayed how she felt. Along the way, she resorted to deep thinking about Roy's well-being and his apparent near-death experience. She was not willing to show off anymore of her softer side in front of the men who worked with her. They too were extremely affected by seeing their commanding officer, and also friend, in such a reduced state. But even that assuring fact made her self-conscious. All three walked to the hospital in mournful silence, not even Havoc said anything to try and cheer them up. Bringing Roy to the hospital immediately was the only thing on all of their minds, by making as little of a fuss as possible. They did not want all of the military knowing about this and getting involved, at least not yet…

_**Present Day, Present Time**_

Once Envy left the room, Father ordered Pride to come forward. He wanted to see how much his homunculus son had changed from the bloody ordeal that happened above ground that same night.

"Now Pride, I want to check on a few things before I dismiss you." Father stood up and walked towards him. He put a hand under the younger blonde's chin and raised his head up. Father also took note of the height differences between them and uncharacteristically made a small smile. '_I remember how small you were, but it feels like a lifetime ago…_' His mouth faltered and flat lined, immediately shrugging off the random thoughts and memories that resurfaced faintly in his mind. He thought he pushed them to the farthest corners of his mind years ago, it appears he will still have to suppress them further. He inspected Pride's eyes, noting that the slit pupils were much more noticeable now, just as Envy told him. But he also noticed something else, something darker now growing within Pride's irises, his amber-yellow eyes now took on a darker tone than before. Father also took note of the change in his skin tone and hair color, the slight reddish tint of his skin and bright blonde hair became paler by the day. It wouldn't be long now before the changes in Pride's features were complete, which indicated his transformation into a full-fledged homunculus.

Pride was becoming slightly uneasy from the close proximity and touchiness, and reverted back into his own thoughts to make the time pass. It's not that he despised attention, because that certainly wasn't the case. He loved getting praises from Father. However, right now, he felt like he was a lab rat under the merciless gaze of a scientist, his personal space not being regarded whatsoever. He started wondering why Father acted this way, but also kept in mind that he was the older man's most treasured spawn, so he tried to tolerate this temporary lack of privacy. If it were Envy doing this to him, on the other hand… _'Speaking of that asshole Envy, I really should convince Father to give me a better lower outfit than this annoying, flappy thing…_' The skort Pride wore was really starting to irritate him, and it didn't help the fact that the hot-headed jerk Envy also wore the same thing.

He was taken out of his thoughts when Father spoke again. "Good, your eyes are finally on the right course of change, and so is the rest of your body. There's one more thing I must do before you can go. Now stay still for a few moments." Father got a hold of the lower part of his left arm, taking off the arm glove and gripping onto it. Then, he put the other hand on top of Pride's head and closed his eyes. Pride, following his orders of staying still, stood there dumbfounded looking at the older blonde man, noticing he was deep in concentration. He also noticed that, unlike the first time Father did something like this, this time he didn't feel a thing. And just as he promised, Father withdrew his hands moments later, looking pleased. "It surprises me how much progress you have made in such a short time, it could be that your craving and ingestion of blood this soon was the cause of this. You will need to learn the proper way of living as a homunculus, and it's best to begin as quick as possible. You are ready to start your missions with Envy, Lust and Gluttony. Tomorrow night will be when you go on your first one."

Father patted his head almost affectionately, but Pride couldn't help but cringe for some reason. He's had enough of others touching him tonight, treating him as a borderline pet and not as someone who wants his boundaries respected. Despite this, he was happy to hear the praise and good news, so that was always a plus for him. "Thank you, Father. Glad I could make you happy." He turned around and headed for the doors, on his way to his 'room'. Somehow, those words didn't sound right coming out of his mouth and directed at Father, but he was also glad that this was over. He had a handful of questions and one request to get off his chest, but he figured now wasn't the right time to tell Father any of them. He'll have the opportunity later.

"Oh, one more thing my son." Pride stopped midstride and turned around to Father, already getting quite annoyed at him for interrupting his thoughts again. "You will come to me tomorrow before you leave, I will feed you more stones so that you'll be properly sustained. In fact, you must come to me to be fed before all future missions, as they will build up your strength in the long-term. But make sure you consume as much blood as possible, that is also vital for your growth."

"Alright Father, got it." Pride headed straight for the door again but stopped moving when he heard the man behind him chuckle in a strangely light-hearted manner. This surprised the homunculus, and he turned himself around to see a smiling Father looking at him.

"Wait Pride, it's apparent you want to leave so soon, yet at the same time you seem to have something on your mind. Is there really nothing else you want to tell me?" Pride seriously thought carefully on how to respond. Sure, Pride had enough questions he would want answers to, but he wasn't in the mood to ask them right now. Not right after that strange check up session.

"No Father, I don't really have much else to tell you right now. When I do, I'll let you know." And with that, Pride finally headed out the doors, somewhat confused by Father's overall behavior. He soon shrugged it off and thought no more of it once thoughts about tomorrow night's mission came to his mind. Instead of heading straight to his room, he thought of taking a detour and seeing the sewers again. And maybe strike a conversation with Sloth one-to-one, since he did find her somewhat interesting to be around. He didn't feel like sitting on his 'bed' and doing nothing other than thinking all day, he'd rather walk for a little bit and think at the same time, exercising both his mind and body. This last minute exploration plan was cut short, however.

"Which direction do you think you're heading to?" A female voice spoke. He turned around immediately on high alert and saw the owner of the voice. It wasn't Sloth, but another female homunculus, from what he could tell by the mark above her chest area. Standing next to her was a short but extremely fat and weird-looking homunculus looking creepily at him. He couldn't see any mark on the monstrous looking man, though he figured it was somewhere not so obvious. He didn't want to dwell on this thought further, so he left it at that. Even without the ouroboros mark, he could tell he was a homunculus by the red node lines going up his massive arms. For some reason, Pride could not shrug off the gaze of suspicion the female homunculus was giving him.

"Who are you two? You're homunculi like me, right?" He realized that neither Father nor Envy mentioned there being two other homunculi around. He was already there for a week and saw no signs of them. Then again, a week still wasn't such a long time and he's barely explored a fraction of the lair.

She chuckled lowly. "My my, practically a newborn and already he's perceptive enough to be asking such questions." All of the sudden, her expression turned slightly fowl. "Better answer mine before I answer yours, _Pride_." It wasn't really a weak threat so much as a demand, but her change of tone surprised him, to say the least.

Gluttony let out a weird laugh, then said. "_Pride_, Pride! The youngest one of us, familiar—"

Lust smacked the fat man on the back of his head, making him shut up. "Be quiet, idiot." Gluttony only emitted a sad whine in response.

Pride only looked at them incredulously for a few seconds, then ignored the uncanny exchange, despite how suspicious it made him feel. He was about to ask her how he knew of him, but instead went along with her demands and he answered her question first. Not out of fear necessarily, but out of wanting to fulfill what he had in mind as soon as possible. "I thought I'd explore the lair some more by taking a different route to my room." Then, he added in with a snarky tone, "Is that a problem?"

She only smiled at him with one arm under her breasts and the other hand on her chin, inspecting him yet again."Aren't you the curious one among us, huh? I'd expect nothing less from one such as yourself." Strange response from someone he practically just met, even if it was a fellow homunculus. Pride didn't know whether to take that as a teasing insult or a compliment, though he decided on the latter option. He was getting slightly irritated, the amount of questions in his mind just keep piling up, and he feels like no one was willing to give him straight answers. "Yes, Pride, we are homunculi just like you. I'm Lust and he's Gluttony." She could tell Pride was smart enough to guess who was who on his own, but she wanted to be as clear as possible.

He eyed each one of them, before looking right at her again. Now that the first question was out of his mind, he proceeded onto the next one. "How exactly did you know who I was? You've never seen me before."

She chuckled at that in a knowing manner, looking straight at his eyes and noticing the yellow of his irises, before stating, "Word travels fast amongst us homunculi when we have someone like Envy in our midst. He's the top of the homunculus hierarchy and the oldest one among us. The one who knows the most secrets coming straight from Father and Dante themselves." She then laughed and said, "He also has a horrible temper, so it's best not to get on his bad side."

Pride wanted to laugh at what she said, because it was true. Instead, he let out only a snicker laced with sarcasm. "Too late, I already found that out days ago..." He didn't want to admit that he was starting to enjoy the conversation, and what she mentioned about a homunculus 'hierarchy' being in place interested him. However, he decided to finally end it. "I should head back now, wouldn't want him or Father finding me absent from my room." He walked past the two without another glimpse at them. Instead of taking another detour to explore the lair a bit more, plans of going straight to his room quickly replaced that.

Lust, as a final note, randomly said to the retreating blonde homunculus, "No matter how frustrating things might become, you will get used to this life sooner or later. Just as I have accepted it. I advise that you try tolerating everyone else in our 'family' as best as you can, despite all of our flaws. We homunculi are the physical embodiment of the sins, after all."

'_Embodiment of the sins, huh? What exactly does she mean?_' Despite the piling up questions,Pride as a response only looked at her sideways, appearing suddenly disinterested when he in fact was not. "Got it." He muttered, then walked away quietly.

When Pride was a good distance away, Lust turned to Gluttony and said lowly, "Envy told us not to reveal any hints that might make him remember his past, next time don't slip up like that. It appears that the Fullmetal brat's high intelligence has been transferred into his homunculus self, we can't risk being so impetuous. That wouldn't do for Father's plans in the long-term." It has only been a few days ago since she and Gluttony healed up properly from the attack they dealt with a week ago. The brother and General of Fullmetal really made hard blows against them that night of the attack, so much so that they were down for the count for some time. How pathetic was that, having only mere humans and their pesky alchemy get the better of two powerful homunculi? Due to incidences such as these, she sometimes wondered how 'immortal' and invincible homunculi were.

Lust herself had gone through a period of time when she started doubting the overall agenda of Father and Dante, the latter being a very powerful human alchemist, while the prior could've been considered something else entirely. She began to question if there was any benefit for her in the long run. If their promise to her was sound and her goal to become human would come to pass. However, the more she saw how humans behaved and how pitiful and ignorant they really were, the more she doubted that she ever would want her humanity back, if it was even there to begin with. She saw much benefit in staying essentially immortal, but she needed to depend on them for continual sustenance. She knew being dependent on them was a risk, but what else was there to do other than run away and have them come after her?

It can be said that she was also grateful for what Father and Dante have done for her, despite the fact that she doesn't wholly trust them. She would've been a complete fool if she did, but she knew better, remembering one particular eye-opening experience she had a few years back. She knew their tendency for deceit and secrecy, though she played along anyways to get what she needed. They have given her, and every other homunculus, a Philosopher's Stone to insert within them to give them a main power supply should they need it. They also told her that they were the only alchemists in the world who would be able to transmute her into a human, if she played her part in their overall plans. If she decided to run off for whatever reason, she would only rely on her own Philosopher's Stone, which meant she would eventually run out of the human lives that lie dormant within it. Lust, and all the other homunculi, needed the Red Stones on the side to actually ensure their immortality and continual powers. Father and Dante also sought to their immortality as well, and so they supplied them the stones if the homunculi played their parts well. Equivalent Exchange is not just a principle followed by mere alchemists alone, it must be followed even by the very homunculi who spit on their very existence. The very same alchemists who helped spawn them to life 'again', against their own wills, by manipulating the Gate. Damned alchemists always try to manipulate and control nature, but only a very few of them have a special type of arrogance to even attempt Human Transmutation.

Envy returned underground hours later. What transpired those hours ago was still fresh in his mind. His anger and vindictiveness towards Pride from that time still has not dissipated. Even after murdering a few humans in the upper world to try and quell his emotions, he still holds absolute disdain for his homunculus half-brother. It's not only due to what happened before, that only added onto his never-ending hatred. His hate, his own _envy_, for the blonde is for a far greater reason, a reason that goes back to pure sibling animosity. He would be more than _thrilled_ to admit to this hatred, but there are the few factors holding him back which will ruin his own goals. For one, Father, who holds the main position to their 'family' now, would severely punish him for trying to eliminate his most precious piece. However, that's not the reason that worries him the most. If the pipsqueak finds out about his own past, that will severely put a dent in Envy's diabolical goals to transform the runt into a psychotic killing machine. This goal was the way in which Envy would try and get back at his half-brother, back at Father, and at everyone else they were connected to. It would be the ultimate payback, regardless of who else it will effect, as his hatred for all of humanity was also his drive in life.

He actually did not care for anyone but himself and his negative feelings, but the closest thing he felt to 'caring' was during the days of his homunculus rebirth, towards Dante. She was the only one who gave him his drive to live, sparked the fires of passionate animosity within him, even though she was a human. But she was special, definitely second only to Hohenheim herself, although Envy hated his bastard old man for abandoning them. That's why, despite the fact that he's now in charge of them all, and feels as if he's been utterly betrayed by the one who used to be his 'mother', Envy will never forgive nor forget what _he's_ done. That was what he considered to be Hohenheim's ultimate sin, the abandonment of his original family, and then the start of his new one centuries later. It wouldn't do to have a repeat of a few years back and attack him directly though, the green-haired homunculus was going to behave more intelligently and patiently from now on. And he will surely do so by taking it out on Pride in any way he could.

Envy was now on his way to Father's throne room, ready to hear what the grand master alchemist had to say next. On the way there, he passed by the staying rooms and noted Pride laying on his bed, facing away from the door, in deep thought no doubt. Envy eyed him suspiciously, the unconscious fear of Pride finally remembering his past memories now at the back of the envious sin's mind. He would deal with him later. He reached the throne room and opened the two doors. Father immediately became alert of this, and stared at the homunculus as he walked towards him. Envy only stared back in attention, momentarily putting aside his feelings of vengeance and awaiting Father's commands. He stopped in front of the man looked around the room with his peripheral vision and took note of the singed scent, sensing that this room has been alchemically tampered with. He began to realize what Father may have done and grinned.

Envy was the first to speak. "Well, it looks like you were busy while I was gone. I thought you attempted that transmutation days ago." He said this slightly with his occasional smug tone, but not enough to annoy the man. If Envy couldn't defy Father, then he could at least tease him in more subliminal ways when he had the chance.

Father glares at him, responding with, "I have, Envy, but some adjustments and improvements needed to be added in to finish the process. I'm sure you can guess what I'm referring to."

Envy rolled his eyes in mock annoyance. To Father he may have sounded curious and interested, but other things were on his mind. "Whatever, I don't really care right now. What is it you wanted to tell me? Will he start going out on missions soon or are you delaying that further?"

"No delays, Envy. He is ready. Soon enough, his body will entirely change to that of a new form of pure homunculus, the likes of which the world has never seen yet. It's best this process starts as soon as possible. Time is not to be wasted, every one of his outings will help this process, by nourishing him physically and mentally. Although he must still be kept under watch until we are confident that he's trustworthy enough to be exploring the upper world on his own. In the meantime, he will only be going on missions at night. We do not want to risk exposing his identity to any familiar faces, at least this soon. We want everyone to believe my son has completely passed on from this world. Tomorrow night, all of you except Sloth and Wrath will head out."

Envy didn't previously mind Lust and Gluttony tagging along with him while they were on surface level. This time, however, he had mixed feelings about it, because they're going to join in on missions so soon after the blonde's rebirth. He felt Lust and Gluttony would distract both him and Pride from what he had in mind for the new homunculus. He made a mental note to talk with Lust about that later. Envy wanted to ask Father why he wanted Lust and Gluttony to even come, so he did despite already knowing the answer to that. "Why would you want the others to come along? Pride is still trying to get used to me."

Father eyed Envy seriously. "He needs to be exposed to more than one other homunculus at a time. It will further help with his development by having an idea of how each of you fight. His powers have not surfaced yet. Being a new brand of homunculus, it's quite different and unclear how his powers may come. I have a few theories about how they may come but it could take years for them to appear. Let's not expect anything for a long while."

"How about his unconscious side? Are you sure his memories can stay locked up for good inside his mind?" Envy blurted out a bit too soon and slightly regretted that. He didn't want to sound passionate about any of this, nor give away any hint of his plans for revenge.

Father nodded with certainty, but his eyes said otherwise. "Since he's a new type of homunculus, made by the corpse of Edward and hence his body, it was easier for me to tweak his mind by manipulating his part of the Gate. But even I couldn't remove his memories, nor the link to his human soul. Remember, he was turned into a homunculus before his human soul could leave him."

Envy's hands clench slightly at his sides. "But why bother keeping his soul intact within him?! It seems to be more of a disadvantage than anything else!"

"His soul still remains at his Gate, and it remains there for reasons which I cannot explain to you or anyone else at this time. This knowledge is strictly on the level of extremely advanced Alchemy, a concept which, other than myself, only Dante might be able to grasp. Why does this concern you so much, Envy? Do as I say and don't worry about him stepping out of line. Keep watching over him whenever you can and he won't stray from our intentions."

Envy stood still, looking away from Father and towards his left. "Fine. But I'm curious about something else. You said Pride is another form of homunculus altogether, right? Why does he have a craving for blood and not only stones like the rest of us? Did you intend that to happen, or is that how he's was supposed to turn out? He sort of reminds me of those legends…"

Father actually smirked at Envy's genuine analysis and what he was alluding to. "Yes, I see you remember the stories of the legendary blood-suckers from centuries ago. The stories about vampires and the countless bloody rampages that occurred during times of war. I will let you in on a few secrets, Envy. Only Dante and myself truly know the facts behind the vampire myth, and it is indeed connected to alchemy. Or more specifically, Human Transmutation. You will be surprised to find out that vampires as another form of being separate from humans did not exist. The idea that vampires existing as a separate supernatural entity is far from truth, because it is in fact homunculi who are truly the vampiric products of alchemy."

Envy actually opened his mouth in shock, then retorted as quickly as possible. "What the hell do you mean, that we are actually **vampires**? That we've been lied to all this time about what we really are?!"

Father raised a hand up, looking visibly annoyed. "Calm down, Envy. The explanation for this is rather simple. No, you are not 'vampires', per say. You and the others are indeed homunculi, even Pride is, as you are all beings who are the final products of Human Transmutation. However, the label of 'vampire' is given to any being that lives their life parasitizing off of other living beings in order to receive or maintain their immortality, super abilities or the bettering of themselves at the expense of these lives. Homunculi, well most of them, do this through the stones they consume. Homunculi are certainly not the only type of 'vampire' in existence. Some humans themselves can be considered vampires as well, if they make a habit of consuming enough blood or energy from other living beings, preferably other humans. Mostly during times of war, during our world's not too distant past, some humans took advantage of these times of great misery with the atrocious amounts of deaths that resulted from these wars, by spilling blood under the name of war as a disguise. Other humans, mainly those of the royal persuasion, also took advantage of other humans they ruled over by committing blood rituals on their poor prisoners in secret. However, this did not last long and once they were found out the royals were executed from most surrounding countries. That is what gave birth to the lore of the vampires, but once these blood rituals stopped, some of the more intelligent common folk of the time, those like Dante and I, decided to write out these truths in code by disguising it as a myth. What is faulty about the lore is the proclamation that these human vampires were anything but human, but that is a lie put in the legends to perpetuate the supernatural part of the myth, and for good reason. The world did not want to see the rise of vampires again. The homunculus myth is similar, in that almost all of humanity refuse to believe homunculi exist today, seeing them as just another folktale, with the difference being that they are regarded as mythical products of Alchemy. But the truth about homunculi has been kept from them as well. If humans know too much, they will use knowledge to their advantage and be doomed to the brink of extinction, but we cannot allow that. That is why we do what we do, to control the human herd and its population, and get rid of any dissenters or undesirables. Humans are being put to great use under our supervision, but if they step out of line they will get punished."

Even for Envy, all this vampire talk was a bit overwhelming to take in, but he now understood what Father meant. '_It all makes sense, in a way, if the physical similarities between 'vampires' and homunculi are noticed as well. Our paler skin tones, our sharper teeth, the pressure points on our bodies where we are rendered almost immobile if pierced into…_' Envy crossed his arms around his chest and looked at Father in a careful manner. "And what about Pride? Care to explain what the real deal is with him? Is he nothing more than a hybrid? And why can't the rest of us homunculi thrive on blood like him?"

Father grinned at Envy's seemingly newfound curiosity, and he was surprisingly happy to oblige. "Very good questions, my son." Envy tried to suppress a cringe at being called 'son' by this man, but continued listening regardless. "However, you're looking at this all the wrong way. There is in fact one of you 'original' homunculi who can consume living material and thrive just as fine. He is none other than Gluttony, and I'm sure you're aware of that already. Although his composition is the same as yours and the other homunculi _except _Pride, all of you original homunculi were born straight from the material beyond the Gate, so you could see his cravings for living material as a prototype for how Pride's own cravings are like. But keep in mind, Gluttony's name also accounts for why he has cravings for human flesh nonstop. Pride is still very different from him in essence, and different from the rest of you. Yet at the same time not so different, because all six of you are partly born from the essence of certain dead humans in one way or another. It's the material used to make a homunculus which matters what kind of homunculus one is. Pride is a special case, in that he's more akin to the vampires of lore, since his body has only been reanimated from its original dying human state. However, he has been transformed through alchemy and can take in stones the same way other homunculi do, which is why he is almost entirely homunculus and not technically part human anymore. What we are seeing from him now is only the beginning of the final stages."

Envy would've still been intrigued by all this, however, he couldn't forget the fact that Father just called him his 'son'. His curious mood quickly turned to a sour one, and hearing about Pride only made it worse even though he requested to know about him. He barred his teeth and shook an arm out at him out of rage, for emphasis. He grounded out, "I'm not your fucking son, old man! Not anymore! You seem to forget that!"

Father sighed, and responded, "I cannot fathom why you still greatly despise me, while I'm trying as hard as I can to make a better union for both my families. There is more at stake now than your hateful feelings towards me or your younger brother. What we have to focus on now is a great task at hand."

"I don't care! I won't hear this shit now…I'm leaving…" He wanted to tell him more, tell him that he knew very well the reason why Envy still hated his guts, but the green-haired homunculus left it at that. Envy angrily turned around and stomped towards the doors, acting not unlike a child with a temper tantrum.

"You better not leave before I give you my orders, Envy." The tone in which Father said this made Envy stop in his tracks. He tensed his body while closing his eyes, then opened them again and turned around, trying to make his features become more relaxed. He tried giving off a more neutral expression, though try as he might he did a piss poor job at that. It was obvious to Father that the hate and anger he saw on his eldest 'son' only moments ago was still present on the homunculus' face, although only evident in his eyes this time. Nonetheless, Father intentionally ignored it, not seeing this behavior as out of the ordinary or even much of a threat. "You, Pride, Lust and Gluttony will go to the dwindling town of Aquroya, and kill whatever human population remains there. Those suicidal fools need to realize that a dying town such as theirs spells eminent death for those idiotic enough to remain within it. That desperate female alchemist we gave the red stone to a while back was warned that if she didn't go through with the task we gave her, her whole town would be reduced to rubble and eventually fall into the ocean. Since she has not listened to our commands, her and her whole town will suffer the consequences."

Envy did not say much to those commands before he left, all he said was that he would alert the others as soon as he encountered them. However, all his focus has reverted back to a certain blonde homunculus, whom he was headed towards now. He thought he may as well get his pissed off phase over with first by 'punishing' Pride, before telling Lust about the mission. Envy headed straight towards the blonde's room first, knowing exactly how he would deal with him.

When he got there, he slammed the door open, literally startling Pride out of his laid down position which initially made him face away from the door. The widened golden amber murky pools of his eyes, with their very small pupils, focused automatically on Envy and then returned to their original size, before the temporary shock. Envy just stood there a few moments, looking at him darkly. Not scared of the other homunculus, Pride asked him, "What do you want? Don't you know how to knock, _bro_?" He added in that last question intentionally to sound like a smartass, because he already knew that Envy wasn't the type to be polite and knock on doors before entering rooms. The was his first mistake he made in this current encounter.

Envy rushed towards him in a split second, punching him square in the stomach, then grabbing a hold of most of his long hair and smashing his head upon one of the bed's corners. He then lowered his mouth to his closest ear and proceeded to shout out, "Fucking smartass! Don't think I've forgotten that you ran your mouth a bit too much while we were talking with the old man hours ago." He saw Pride's shocked expression return, then the blonde coughed out 'blood', which pleased Envy. It was certainly not Pride's own 'blood', though, but it didn't matter to Envy. The jealous sin was pleased of the fact that he is still much stronger than Pride, or else he wouldn't have been able to 'injure' him this much. The blonde was also struggling to get out of his grasp, but to no avail. Whatever internal injuries Envy caused, they were soon healed up with the power of the stones, the regeneration of body parts being a default power for all homunculi. Envy smirked as he got a sudden idea, one which would further degrade Pride. "Next time, talk to me with a certain degree of respect!" He dragged Pride by the hair and onto the floor, next to the small pool of blood that was now present there. "Drink that shit back into your system, I can't have him see it. When you're done, listen carefully to what I'll tell you next." Pride sat himself on the floor looking directly at Envy with an equal amount of malice, intentionally ignoring the alluring pile of blood right next to him. Envy's clenched his fist, kneeled down in front of Pride and raised the fist near his face. "**Hurry up, idiot**. I don't have all day to babysit your scrawny ass!"

"No…I won't…" Pride said lowly, finally looking away from Envy, towards the opposite direction from the blood. What he got as a response he already expected, which was a punch in the face. Or rather, to put it more accurately, they were _repeated _punches on each side of his face. Envy put enough force into each that he knocked out a few of Pride's teeth from his jaw. The blonde, his lower facial region now extremely bloody and the red liquid continuing to trail down underneath his chin, spit out the teeth that have been knocked out of their roots. They landed on the clean side of the floor, the side which he was looking at moments ago.

Envy should've been even more pleased at his dirty handiwork, but got more irritated at Pride due to the new stain he's made. He smacked him this time, and said, "Pick up the teeth, insert them back into your sockets, then lap up all the mess you've made around you, filthy mutt."

Pride was not exactly able to hear him at the moment. Envy didn't realize this, but the blonde has been put into a trance, which all the more thinned his pupils. He then proceeded to shake a bit, with his irises getting smaller, and then lapped his tongue all over his mouth and chin, taking in a generous amount of 'his' blood that Envy was responsible for spilling. Then, he took his hands and scrapped off whatever blood that remained on him that he couldn't reach and drink it. Pride already had his bruises and other visible injuries healed minutes ago, but his teeth haven't grown back much.

Envy actually looked on with a bit of patience, waiting this all out until the blonde cleaned up his body. Once he did, Pride immediately went straight for the bloody ground, almost pouncing on top of it like a cat. He seemed to be unconsciously - that is, without being in control of his thinking process - following Envy's orders, but this wasn't the case. The blood was indeed the only factor driving him to act in such a feral, famished way yet again. Pride then proceeded to lap up and lick off as much blood from the floor as he possibly could. Envy only observed him in silence, with mild interest and disgust at the same time. He took note of the fact that he would have to get used to the pipsqueak acting like this from now on, even though the jealous sin himself was a little creeped out at this scary transition the blonde went through. It took a good amount of minutes for Pride to finish, and another few minutes for him to snap out of his trance. However, Envy, as patient as he was forcing himself to be, was not going to wait for much longer.

He looked straight at him while the blonde was still in his crouched position on all fours, standing a few feet behind him. "Finished up finally, you crazy animal? Now, get your teeth and do as I said, unless you want to a kick in the ass next." Pride already was out of the trance of bloodlust when he heard this. He was hyperventilating and trying to keep his composure from rush of all the energy he's taken back into himself. The energy gave him that lively feeling again, and it was hard to control.

Before he stood up, he looked at the three teeth on the drying up ground nearby, then felt the roots of his jaws where they belonged. His empty roots were already growing back teeth, to his amazement. The teeth that were knocked out of his mouth before started to melt down and transform into a white liquid. He was intrigued at this, and also satisfied at the fact that he wouldn't have to go through with Envy's next orders. The act of not doing what Envy told him, to get back at him in any way, even in such a small way like this, was a sweet victory for the blonde, and he relished it deep down. The more times he could get away with pissing off Envy and **not **be punished for it, the more enjoyable the experience was for him. And he had a feeling the older homunculus wouldn't hit him again anytime soon, or else the risk would be the spilling of more blood, and thus this cycle would repeat, which would result in pissing him off even more. Pride realized very quickly how thin Envy's patience was, and could use this to his advantage.

Without looking at the other homunculus in the room, he stood up confidently and then turned to him. He pointed at where the teeth were moments ago, saying, "There's the damned teeth, turned into a pile of mush right behind me. Can't do much about them now. So, what exactly do you want from me next, _brother_?" Pride added in the last word for an extra measure, in order to piss off Envy even more.

Envy, quickly realizing Pride was messing with him, stopped his shaking fists at his sides and tried suppressing his temper. Moments later, his upper face darkened and his mouth formed a small smirk, one that betrayed a small glimpse of his own insanity. He then ran so close up to Pride that he pushed him back towards the bed and intentionally stomped on the blonde's feet as hard as possible, planting him there. It was not hard enough to make him bleed again, however, so Envy had to restrain himself from completely crushing his feet. Pride, before he started struggling against the other's strength, shut his eyes and emitted what sounded like a combination of a yelp and whimper, but quickly quieted himself down. He did not want to respond in any way that would portray any signs of weakness, so he endured the pain knowing that he was still no match for Envy yet. If he were, he would be able to push him off and fight back.

"Listen to me, you cocky little shit." Envy said calmly in an eerily uncharacteristic manner. As he said this, he pushed further down onto Pride, pushing his body even more against the stony bed frame behind him. "I'm only going to say this once, so you better listen and listen well." He saw one of the blonde's eyes open half way and focus on him. The pressure of holding in his pain was also visible on his face. Envy enjoyed seeing him this way, and maybe enjoyed it more than if he saw Pride groveling and sniveling on the ground in front of his feet. As much as he wanted to bask in the younger sin's torment, he had to continue. "Tomorrow night, we will be going out on your first mission. Lust and Gluttony will tag along with us, but I expect you to do most of the work. To put it bluntly, you will have to prove yourself to us more by killing any humans in our way, and I expect the job to be done thoroughly. Do you understand all of what I'm saying, _runt_?" His feet smashed down onto Pride's even more, making the blonde emit a short wince with his teeth clenched shut.

Pride had to get the older homunculus off of him, so out of necessity he nodded his head slowly with one eye open. Apparently, that wasn't good enough for the other homunculus. Envy stomped down on his feet even more, visibly relishing the whimper and pained expression the blonde finally gave off. With clenched teeth, Pride told him, "I just told you yes…get off me-" Envy in response only put a bit more pressure into the stomp, making the blonde shut his mouth quick.

"You're not in any position to be giving off orders, idiot. Make sure you actually **speak **next time." Envy finally let go of his feet, making the blonde stagger in place for a bit. Pride was trying to regain balance and strength in his crushed feet. He refused to soothe his pain while in the asshole'spresence, so he remained mostly still until they healed up on their own. Soon enough they regenerated back to normal. The green-haired homunculus nearby only looked on in satisfaction, relishing in the blonde's pain further. "Make sure you see Father before we head out, he'll give you more stones." That's all he said, smirking, before he finally left the room, closing the door none too gently behind him.

Pride still stood there after getting healed, bewildered and lost in his own thoughts. Thoughts that he already had and thoughts that were newly formed based around this experience. He hated Envy now, with every fiber of his being. Pride did not appreciate being treated like a rag doll, or reduced down to a punching bag. He wanted to snap at him, give him a piece of his mind and even kick his ass for that. But Pride wasn't stupid nor ignorant of what he was capable of. He knew he was far from powerful, compared to the green-haired bastard. If he attacked Envy now, he would immediately get his ass handed to him again.

"Fucking asshole… Is this how things are going to be, to have him beat me down over every little thing I do that he hates?" Pride said lowly. What was on his mind now was a way to get back at Envy, and he had an idea how without having Father get involved. Pride would have to suck it up and act tough, he won't be resorting to snitching tactics. He needed to do something about this situation, and fast, by building up his defense and offense. '_If only I were stronger… I need more stones and blood until I reach up to his level. And I shouldn't let them go to waste, if what Father told me was all true._' Pride partly limped and partly walked back to his bed and landed on top of it. He may have healed moments ago, but the memory of the excruciating pain still lingered in his mind.

The door nearly slammed open, almost startling the blonde on the bed. "C'mon runt, it's time." Envy came to his room the next day to fetch him. It was hard keeping track of time when Pride didn't even have a clock to alert him. And it was even harder to keep himself busy during all those waiting hours, but he didn't want to expose himself much to the rest of the lair after that confrontation with Lust. At least not yet. It's also bad enough that he had an asshole for an older 'brother' constantly making his life as unbearable and miserable as possible. But he promised himself things would not be this way for long. He **would **get the respect and peace of mind he so deserved and wanted, not just from Father but the rest of them too.

Pride followed the older homunculus out of the room and straight to Father, while keeping his distance from him at the same time. It was time for him to get his second large meal of red stones. And soon enough, he would get his second taste of human blood. Thinking about drinking blood made him want to drool, but even as his desire tried to take over him again he retained a sense of self control and patience. Losing control of his mind would have to wait for later, when he'll actually be near blood. He really did not care much for human lives, all he cared about was his feeding on them.

Lust and Gluttony were already waiting for them at the entrance, and they would wait more until Pride and Envy finished talking to Father. They walked up to Father, he offered Pride stones to consume, and Envy stood there waiting for the blonde's small feeding session to finish. Pride felt his power growing with each stone he consumed, feeling a small rush after each one that went down to his stomach, but it felt like nothing compared to the rush he got from blood. Father looked on in approval, satisfied to see that his son was progressing. "Good, you are definitely ready tonight. However, I have one more thing prepared for you." Father took out an almost entirely black cloak, made from the same fabric his clothes were. Pride looked on in surprise, even though he knew what it was for.

"A cloak? You want me to wear it?" Pride asks, genuinely curious.

Envy rolled his eyes and grasped harshly onto one of his shoulders. "No, he wants you to rip it to shreds and consume the pieces… Of course he wants you to wear it, **dumbass**! Why else would he give it to you?!" He responded to the blonde sarcastically and condescendingly.

Pride's face immediately changed from calm to annoyed, and he suppressed the urge to growl. Better yet, he wanted to bite the other homunculus' whole hand off for insulting him. He analyzed Father for a few seconds in silence and noticed the old man didn't seem to care about Envy's verbal mistreatment of him. That, or Father just say that interaction as harmless sibling rivalry. Nonetheless, his apparent indifference just gives Pride even more proof that he would have to rely on himself to defend himself. Instead of doing anything drastic, he shrugged off Envy's grip from his shoulder, moving out of place by at least half a foot away. He looked at Father again, before asking, "Why, though? Can I at least ask that?" Pride said this with a bit of snark in his voice, but suppressed the tone.

"It is to conceal your identity from those who might find a way to go against us, at least until you become stronger. Pride, you are an important being that no human knows exists. It's best that you go in disguise until I say otherwise." Father was certainly not going to give a more specific answer to him, not unless he intended for Pride to remember his past.

That was not a sufficient enough answer for Pride. Already, just a week after his 'birth', his analytical and sharp mind worked wonders for his thought process. "But I don't understand why days ago you let me roam out freely. There shouldn't be a problem now!" He said all this with mild outburst, seemingly arguing with Father.

The older man actually stood up and angrily viewed the younger blonde through narrowed eyes. "You will do as I say and stop trying to rebel against my orders! Do you _want _to be punished for your insolence?" Father wouldn't normally get pissed like this, but he had a good reason. He discussed this with Envy before he brought Pride to him. And Father told Envy that the Fullmetal Alchemist's face was much more famous throughout Amestris than they previously imagined. Dante was the one to alert him of this news a while back, but Father did not think it was necessary to conceal Pride's face from the world from the very start. After what happened a week ago, when Pride had killed earlier than Father commanded, he was worried that Pride's identity had been discovered. He knew now that his sons lacked trustworthiness

Pride noted the ferocity in the way Father spoke to him, which was unlike how he's spoke to him previously. The younger blonde must have really got to him to make him behave this way, so Pride took note not to incur his anger next time. He did not like that change in the older man, but he tried to not show any fear towards him now. Pride still looked slightly irritated, hiding his newfound fear behind that mask. He looked away from both Envy and Father, before he responded with a meek tone, "No, Father, I'm sorry for that…" Then, he continued by saying more loudly, "I'll wear the damned cloak." Pride walked up to Father, determined, and then took the cloak from his hands. He undid it clumsily and then slung it over his shoulder. He didn't like cowering and kissing ass for anyone, but it _was _Father. "I'll wear it right before we head out. Before I go, I have something to tell you. But _**he **_needs to leave." He stuck a thumb at Envy's direction after saying this. Pride figured that if he was going to be miserable with his 'family', he would develop the courage to start making his own demands.

Envy growled and almost motioned to grab Pride by the arm, but Father stopped him. "I will listen to what you have to say, but make it quick. Envy, you wait outside of the room." Father focused his piercing stare on Envy, silently telling him to obey. Envy clenched his fists and left the room, almost stomping out. The jealous homunculus did not like being kicked out nor being left in the dark from anything they might say. He was internally making guesses as to what Pride might say, but all of them were for naught and far from accurate. The blonde wouldn't tell on him, that he knew for sure. And even if he did, he knew Father wouldn't be able to do shit. The old man should've expected him to mistreat the shorty.

Pride waited patiently for Envy to leave, before he spoke. "I want to request something, I'd like a change of outfit. This thing had been annoying me ever since I wore it." He pointed towards his skort, then pulled at it in frustration. "I would like to wear some pants instead, not _**this **_thing."

Father looked at him inquisitively. He was interested by the quick development of Pride's own interests and emotions, and surprised to hear him being assertive about them. But Father did not expect the skort to be his first ever pet peeve. He sooner expected to hear Pride complaining about Envy mistreating him, and it was obvious to Father, but his first complaint was about his outfit! The older man couldn't help but let out a small chuckle. "I understand your frustration, Pride. But there are more important matters you should be attending to at this moment. However, I will listen to your request, because you've voiced your discomfort. It will not do to have you feel as such when out on missions, although you must give me some time. After your mission come back here, and you will receive what you've asked for."

Pride nodded. "Okay, thanks Father, I appreciate it." He tried to say without sounding too much like he was sucking up to the man, but it _was _this man who birthed him in the first place. So it was fitting to display a little sense of gratitude towards him for this. Regardless, he still kept in mind that his 'family' was a mixed bag of sorts. Without another word from either of them, Pride finally left with Envy.

Lust and Gluttony actually went on ahead to Aquroya to get a head start, since they were slower than Envy and Pride. Envy waited behind for Pride, for the sole fact that Pride didn't know his way around Amestris yet. Pride put on his cloak before heading out of a sewer exit which was the farthest away from Central as they could possibly get, following closely behind Envy. He was about to manifest his scythe, but the older homunculus told him to wait until they got to their destination. They began their travel by running as fast as possible. It was during the very early hours of dusk, the more rural areas they passed through were almost pitch black. However, being the homunculi they were, they could easily see their way through the darkness with their better hearing.

All throughout the running, Envy held a frown and his mind was busy. He didn't want to admit, but he was curious to find out what Pride told Father. He was not going to pry the answer out of Pride, though, he somehow knew the pipsqueak would be too stubborn to tell him anyways. He also expected Pride to not be so talkative with him today, after what he put him through yesterday. Instead, Envy thought it best to tease and pester him nonstop tonight, stabbing at Pride's ego repetitively. He would just have to wait until they arrive at Amestris' city of water.

When they arrived at Aquroya, Pride immediately took in the sight of a crumbling city near the ocean. It was a city that was so close to falling into the water any day now, it's appearance regressed even more than how it was only half a decade ago. There was barely any commotion in town tonight, either. If a newcomer came into the city now and saw it, they would conclude that its already been largely abandoned. And they would be correct with their assessment. Pride was just the newcomer to have this first thought about it.

"What is wrong with this city?! It's dead silent and looks like it's falling apart! Are you sure there are humans still living here?" The blonde said this more out of shock than towards anyone in particular, but Envy was the only one there with him to give a response.

The older homunculus didn't respond with words, though, he instead smacked the blonder on the back of his head. "Pay attention to yourself first, **idiot**! Were you too distracted by your surroundings to notice your cloak's hood went down?! **Put it back on your empty head**!" Envy grounded out the last sentence with a snarl. The blonde only looked back with a mean stare, and did as he was told. Pride did not like the asshole insulting his intelligence again, but he knew he would have to tolerate it.

A rustling in the large bushes was heard nearby from where they were standing. Lust and Gluttony came out of them and silently communicated their presence to them. Lust was the first to speak, after she noticed Pride's new look. "Nice outfit you have there, kid." She said this with her typical devious stare. The blonde didn't know how to respond to that. He didn't know whether she was being serious or sarcastic, but he had to admit that the outfit wasn't so bad now. It at least covered his atrocious looking skort, and it wasn't uncomfortable.

Envy chuckled. "I know, he looks completely ridiculous! I can barely see his face under there. But I guess that look would have to do for him, wouldn't want certain individuals seeing how he looks like yet…" Envy looked at the cloaked homunculus with a smirk. "Now, let's get the action started."

Pride nodded, understanding what he meant. He figured that was his queue to manifest his scythe, for the second time being out on the surface world. He clapped his hands together, then alchemic lights sprung forth and recreated his six foot scythe seemingly out of nothing. The other three looked on, two of them looking a bit surprised. Envy already saw the light show before and quickly became disinterested, not caring about the science behind this seemingly impossible form of alchemy. However, he did internally note to himself that Pride looked very reminiscent to the Grim Reaper of legend.

"Oooooh, flashy…big weapon!" Gluttony said, childishly, after removing his finger out of his mouth. Envy rolled his eyes at him, putting a hand on his hip.

Lust couldn't help but state her own input, although she looked less amazed than Gluttony. She said, "Yes, intriguing." Like Gluttony, she was not a homunculus of many words, but she was definitely much more intelligent. Pride realized this almost immediately during their first encounter in the lair.

Envy, becoming increasingly bored, broke the silence. "Let's have Pride start the 'hunt', shall we? His scythe will give us all a head start." Envy gave him a small push forward. "All you have to do is swipe that scythe at every living thing you find and be as quiet as possible. We don't want your first killing spree to cause widespread panic and screaming. Learning how to mass murder silently and efficiently is important, we want this all to be a deadly surprise to the native to this retched city." Pride stood still a moments, looking at him and wondering why this mission must be done silently. "Well, what are you waiting for?! Go to the first house and **kill anyone in it**! Then, go onto the next house and repeat the second step." Envy pushed him more forward, but the blonde turned around and hit him on his side with the long hilt of his scythe.

"Don't rush me, Envy! I want to analyze the city first and find an easier way to maneuver it, if I'll be killing these humans silently." Pride spoke the last sentence in a strangely calm manner, after snapping back at Envy with the first one. He didn't look like it, but he was in deep thought, and with that large hood over his head it was hard for the others to notice.

We're scanning the scene in the city tonight  
We're looking for us to start up a fight

Envy, standing feet behind him, wanted to backhand him for that, but Lust motioned at him to leave him alone. Gluttony only chuckled childishly, finding this amusing. Envy was never one to learn patience, but he had to start sometime. He backed off from the blonde, crossing his arms over his chest and looking away with contempt. The jealous sin wanted nothing more than to strangle him right now for what he did, however, he would have to save that for later when they were alone and not preoccupied.

And then Pride made the first move, finally entering deep into the ruined town. He stood in front of his first victim's house and observed the door. He undid the side latches with his scythe as quietly as possible. The huge weapon he possessed, which he moved around with ease, may have appeared difficult for someone of his height to use. He entered the house, looking around for any signs of human life. Soon enough, he saw a couple sleeping peacefully together on a cozy bed in a smaller room. Pride smirked, feeling victorious about his first finding for the night. '_Easy prey._' He quickly went in for the kill, quietly slashing at both their midsections in one swipe cutting them in half. They both opened their eyes from the excruciating pain that followed and unsuccessfully drew their last breaths, but they failed to utter any sound. It was an automatic instant kill, blood pooled profusely on the bed around their bodies.

There's an evil feeling in our brains  
But it's nothing new, you'll know it drives us insane

Pride suddenly came down with the urge to feast, his bloodlust brought on by the sight and smell of their blood. His irises and pupils decreased in size and he soon entered into a sort of trance, his facial expression changing into one of near insanity. He pounced on the bed and started lapping up the blood that was gushing out from their open wounds in a maniacal zeal, slicing open their bodies up more to get a greater supply of fresh blood. He was slowly losing awareness of his surroundings, his main focus now was the bodies he currently feasted upon. But this would prove to be a mistake.

"Mom?! Dad?!" A little boy stood at the entrance and locked onto the cloaked figure on top of his now-dead parents, looking on with pure horror. "W-who a-are y-you?!" The little boy asked the figure shakily with tears in his eyes, but took a step forward. His curiosity would be the cause of his death very soon. Somehow, the sound of footsteps snapped Pride out of his feasting. He put his hood back up, before looking towards the direction of the sound. Before any other movement was made, a black spear came out of what seemed like nowhere stabbing the boy straight through the head. The owner of the spear, Pride soon found out, was none other than Lust. She revealed herself by coming into the room, bringing the dead boy with her elongated spear of a finger closer to Pride.

"Here's your dessert." She threw the small body onto the end of the bed. She did not seemed fazed by his bloodlust, probably because Envy told her already or because she was so used to seeing similar behavior from Gluttony a lot. Pride did not think much of it any further and then continued feasting on the boy this time, taking his hood down now that he knew the coast was clear. And while he feasted he smiled crazily in her direction, as a sign of gratitude. "Next time, be more attentive of your surroundings."

Gluttony appeared right behind her, looking on excitedly. "Can I eat them?" He said in great earnest.

Lust cross her arms under her chest. "Not yet. Let him finish first, then you'll be able to take out the trash."

Envy was the last to appear, whistling in an impressed way at Pride's handiwork. He did not say much else though, only looked on and waited until both Pride and Gluttony finished their meals, respectively.

Running  
On our way

From house to house they travelled, with Pride almost every time repeating what he's done to his first victims. There were a few times where they found children hiding in small spaces, afraid to make a sound for fear of their lives. How these brats detected them without them not realizing was a sort of mystery, but Envy and Lust figured they were probably the few smartest children they've come across and did what was natural to them, which was to hide when they witnessed their parents or relatives dying before them.

Hiding  
You will pay

They allowed Pride to lead all four of them towards the direction of any noise once they found out his hearing was becoming increasingly acute, beyond the normal level seen in the other homunculi. He was the one who heard the muffled sounds of crying from the hiding spots of the hiding children. It appeared as if the more blood and stones he consumed, the more acute all his senses became. By now, they must've killed the majority of the townsfolk. Pride had already filled himself up with their blood a long while ago, so afterwards he focused mainly on killing rather than drinking anymore blood. On occasion, he resorted to drinking some blood when the urge arose again, but certainly not to the extent when he started the killing spree.

Dying  
One thousand deaths

Searching  
Seek and destroy

When they stumbled upon one specific human female, a young woman in her late 20's with an attractiveness level similar to Lust, the interaction became more complicated for Pride. At least, at first…

Pride was the first to enter the house, as usual. This house was quite elaborate, in contrast to the other more modest looking homes he entered. He used his acute hearing to pinpoint any noise, and what he expected was either the snoring or soft breathing of at least one human occupant. He picked up on something very faint on the second floor, and quietly went up the stairs to it. He finally came across a bedroom with the sandy-blonde woman sleeping on it, appearing as unaware as the rest of his bedded human victims. He stepped closer towards her, making sure his footsteps made no sound on the wood below him. Right as he towered over her and raised his scythe to the air, the woman's eyes snapped open in immediate alert and she quickly made a leap off her bed and out of the way of the scythe's swing. The scythe instead tore a huge gap in the bed, shredding through it as if it were butter. What surprised Pride next was the fact that she revealed a transmutation circle right above her breasts, then she touched it and released many sharp cards at his direction, pinning him on the wall. The cards only pinned him up by his cloak with great accuracy. If he weren't a bit pissed off at getting defeated, by a female human no less, he would've been impressed at the precision.

"I always sleep with one eye open, as the saying goes…" She looked at him with a confident smirk. "Who the hell are you? Did _they _send you here to finish me off because I didn't follow their orders?"

"Why yes, Clara, we in fact did." An androgynous voice responded, and she immediately knew who it was. Without another warning, Envy ran to her from behind and landed a kick at her legs, making her fall down ungracefully. She counterattacked with her card-wielding alchemy, aiming for her to recover and head straight out of the room. And just at this moment, Pride ripped himself from the cards that were holding him on the wall. He then proceeded to go after her, but Envy stopped him then gestured for him to stay calm for a moment "That boring trick again? C'mon, it got old fairly quick, _Psiren_." He was not only insinuating about the attack she's done on Pride, but also her past heists as well. She became very well known throughout Amestris a few years after her famous serial robbery attempts that happened during a time when Aquroya wasn't as engulfed by the ocean as it is now. Her infamy, however, was not a good thing, because it attracted the likes of Father and Dante. And her knowledge in alchemy made them all the more interested in contacting her, not directly of course but through the homunculi. Speaking of which… "Keep trying to run from your past and your mistakes, just know that it will not end well for you regardless of what you do to try and escape. Humans like you are so laughably pathetic, always thinking you can take but never give!"

There is no escape and that's for sure  
This is the end, we won't take any more  
Say goodbye to the world you live in  
You've always been taking but now you're giving

Clara was just about to head out her front door, when a black spear stabbed her in the right side of her abdomen and Gluttony tackled her to the ground, pinning her arms above her head. "Gahhh-" The fat homunculus was applying too much pressure on her stomach, as Lust instructed him to do, making it very hard for her to breathe. Soon enough, Envy and Pride jump down to the first floor to join in on the victorious capture.

Our brains are on fire with the feeling to kill  
And it won't go away until our dreams are fulfilled  
There is only one thing on our minds  
Don't try running away 'cause you're the one we will find

"Let me tell you who you are and what happened to you, _phantom thief_… An arrogant bitch probably stuck in her memories of her glory days, and nothing more than a mediocre alchemist who was too full of herself to actually save her own city. You got too comfortable with the power we gave you and used it up for your own selfish needs. Did you not realize that we were fucking homunculi from the start?! That we could rip you to shreds if we so pleased?" Envy cackled. "We gave you the stone to use to fix your run-down town IF you completed our task, but instead you fucked everything up!"

Pride stood there in wonder at what Envy just said. '_They gave her a stone? Being an alchemist, she probably used it up already for her own selfish reasons_.'

Lust walked up to Envy and handed him a pile of papers she found in another room. "Before we do anything else, you should take a look at these." The information written on them was quite alarming, to say the least. It was details on the homunculi, from the ouroboros symbol, which is their trademark, to the transmutation circle, which can be used to trap and destroy them. It's quite concerning to Envy how such a low-end alchemist like Clara was able to get a hold of this information within such a short amount of time. It also reveals to Envy that she did in fact realize what the homunculi were. She would be the type of person this desperate enough to save her own hide at the expense of others, and if that meant finding a way to kill homunculi then she would've definitely found everything she could about them. He wanted to find out who her sources were, and he would beat the truth out of her until she drew her very last breath. He motioned for Gluttony and Pride to make her stand and hold her by the arms, with Lust standing behind her to be prepared for any deceptive moves. Psiren always seemed to find ways to fool her opponent, but they would not allow that.

"You knew what we were all along, didn't you? How the hell did you get this shit?!" He shook the papers right in her face, but that did not faze her. She stood her ground and stayed silent, looking at the ouroboros mark on his thigh, which made Envy punch her square in the face. "**I want a fucking answer now, bitch!**"

Clara felt her cheekbone break when he punched her, but despite that and the pain that resulted from it she responded without cowardice. "I won't…tell you asshole… I am sworn to secrecy… Thief's honor." Envy wanted to stab her right then and there. However, another idea popped up in his mind suddenly. He could think creatively during circumstances such as this.

His mad scowl quickly turned into a mocking sneer at the thought of tormenting her more. All of the sudden, he shape shifted his arm into a thick spear and tore a gash over her Alchemy tattoo. "Take away your alchemy, and you're nothing more than just another weakling human. Now we'll see if you'll stick to your 'thief's honor' once _he's_ through with you. Put her up against the wall," He told Gluttony. "And trap her in place with your spears." He told Lust. They both did as they were told, Gluttony pushing her back up to the wall and Lust piercing four of her spears into both her feet and hands, forcing her into an almost spread-eagle position. She held back her whimpers of pain as much as she could, not wanting her torturers to see her act vulnerable. Envy then crumpled up the papers into a sizeable ball and forcefully stuffed it in her mouth by squeezing her jaws open, almost breaking them in the process. "Even if you screamed, I guarantee no one else would hear you since we killed off most of your town, we only saved you for last." The horrified expression he received from her made him grin, satisfied that this got through to her thick head. He beat into her mind about the ones she failed to save, the people of the town she wanted to restore. Now, it was up to Pride to do his part. "Come here Pride, you will get your first lesson in torturing a human." The blonde obeyed by coming forth but still remained silent, but the silence was certainly not out of meekness. He was trying to stay true to the initial command he was given to be as quiet as possible throughout the mission.

Lust and Gluttony chuckled. "My, won't this be exciting to watch. Give us a good show." Lust said, and winked at Pride.

With authority, Envy proclaimed, "I'll be the only one questioning her. If she does not make a single sound each time I ask her something, you will have a go at her with your scythe. Just gash her wherever and however you want. But make sure not to inflict any fatal blows until I say so."

Pride only nodded in agreement, waiting for the next command with what he felt was excitement stirring within him. After the consumption of so much blood from before, he felt the next feeding urge coming on soon. Being near a human only intensified that urge, he could practically hear their blood flowing in their veins and even smell it. In time, he would need to learn to control this urge if he were expected to travel in broad daylight amongst humans.

"Now, Clara, or should I say phantom thief _Psiren_, tell us who gave you this information and where we can find them." Clara only narrowed her eyes at him, not voicing a single sound. No matter how hurt or trapped she was right now, it did not measure to her increasing rage toward what they've done. Envy only smirked and said, "You have until the count of three to utter just a single sound out of your pretty lips. 1…2…3… Nothing? Pride, you know what to do now.

Pride went to her left, put the tip of the scythe blade on her armpit, and stabbed it in, moving it downwards and creating a large gash that almost broke her rib bones. Her eyes widened and she screamed through the paper gag, trying to shake her way free from the pain. The huge open wound ended just above where her hips were. He stopped there, waiting for Envy to question her again.

He was getting annoyed at the fact that she was this hard to crack. Envy grabbed her face and pulled it to him. "**Focus on me! **The pain you're feeling now is nothing compared to what else he'll do to you next. Now tell me who gave you the info and where we can find them!" She immediately make a sound after that second try. Envy took out the paper gag, waiting for an answer. A few moments passed before he became impatient. "Well? TELL US ALREADY!" What happened next somewhat surprised them all. She spit out a ball of her bloody saliva aimed straight at Envy's eye, but Envy being as fast as he was dodged it in time and counteracted by grabbing her neck and squeezing it. "**Try that again and you'll be very sorry, you fucking wench!**" He reinserted the paper gag back into her mouth forcefully. Then, he stopped Pride before he could land the second blow on her. "Wait a second Pride. Remember how much fun we had dissecting a few other human filth on occasion? This time, I want you to take out one of her lungs. This is another opportunity for you to learn more about human anatomy. That gash is the perfect place to stick your hand up there, grab onto her left lung and rip it out. She doesn't need both." Envy laughed coldly, adding even more insult to what was said.

Pride locked eyes onto her bloody left side, then did as Envy told him. He felt for the lung by going between a couple of her rib bones in the process. This was all done with her thrashing crazily where she was held to try and shake him off, but it didn't break his concentration as much as she thought.. Lust and the others had made sure she stayed in place, he didn't worry too much about her getting loose. He finally got a hold of the large organ and pulled it out of place, then squeezed it right out from between the two rib bones, which have now gone out of place severely due to the pressure Pride exerted onto them. He held out the organ to Envy as a sign of proof, and the other homunculus grinned wickedly, looking at the poor woman who was now hyperventilating, wheezing and almost half naked.

What pleased Envy the most was the fact that he was finally able to break through to her, and it was evident by the way she suddenly burst into tears. Envy wanted to see her squirm and scream and cry from the very beginning, but it apparent that only now did his methods work. He was just one step closer to getting the information he needed out of her. But first, he had to shaken her up a bit more with a little threat he'd been meaning to see get carried out. He stood next to her right side and said loud and clear, "If you don't cooperate with me the third time, let's see if you can hold onto your sanity once he cuts off your breasts! I'm sure you would rather not see those lovely lumps of yours get sliced off in front of you, like pieces of meat at a butcher's shop." He faced her, and she wanted to look away from that sadistic gaze of his which just before she held no fear towards. But if she looked to her left, she would see the scary look of the homunculus called 'Pride'. Instead, she shut her eyes completely and gulped, trying really hard to relax and breathe properly, but now that she was missing one lung from her body it made things all the more difficult. She was bleeding so much, getting light-headed, and feeling so ill that she wanted to barf. She thought it best to just give in. Envy spoke carefully this time, "Tell us who's the fucking dead man that told you this information and where we can find the sorry asswipe."

She immediately mumbled through her gag with teary eyes. She looked utterly devastated and hopeless. She was no fool, she knew what might happen to her. Envy removed the gag again, this time looking at her in a way that told her not to play anymore games with him, because what little patience he had was now running dangerously thin. "It was a few years ago, months after I made the deal with you homunculi…back when I was visiting Central…a large man in a cloak similar to his…came up to me and asked for my Psiren autograph… He offered…to give me the info…in exchange for it…and my promise…to not tell anyone…about this conversation…" She wheezed out her response, her voice cracking at the same time. With each sentence, it was getting harder and harder for her to stop the deterioration of her body. She continued, weeping out, "He…he did not…give me…an identity…or location…and I could not…see his face…under the cloak…" She was getting extremely light-headed now, her body slightly limping down and she was almost on the verge of losing consciousness.

This answer was not good enough for Envy. He did not care what she was going through, he needed more answers and NOW. He punched the wall twice near both sides of her head, but that did little to grab her attention. "Fucking stupid bitch! You're no use to us anymore! PRIDE, I want you to strangle her until she's DEAD."

Both Envy and Lust moved out of the way to make room for Pride, and he then moved in front of her. The blonde homunculus took hold of her neck, then raised her body up with one hand. She was losing strength and could not raise up her hands to pry his grip off her. He didn't notice he was moving his head a bit too far back. His hood suddenly fell, revealing his familiar face to her. Even though he felt it go down, he didn't think much of it. He knew hiding his identity now would be futile, since he was about to kill her. But what he witnessed from her next slightly surprised him. Before he added on the last bit of pressure to instantly kill her, he noticed her bloodshot eyes widen when she saw his face. '_You! But how…_' She was unable to speak out her thoughts of shock, but her eyes said everything. They displayed her last spark of life, right before he squeezed her neck just enough to crush it. '_Yes, death, take me please…_', was her last fleeting thought before her desire was fulfilled. He let go and her body slumped to the ground. Before he looked at the other homunculi, he put his hood back up. His bloodlust was rising again, but he resisted the urge until one of the others spoke to him.

Envy was too pissed off to say anything, so Lust was the one who congratulated him instead. "Good work, Pride. I hope you had fun." She said with a smile.

Pride said smirking underneath his hood. "It was fun, felt good to have her life in the palm of my hands." He was starting to realize how much he really enjoyed making humans miserable and scared. Envy was already leaving his mark on him. Using humans as nothing but a food source also contributed to his sadism.

The female homunculus then turned to Envy and said, "We should let them feast on the spoils before we leave." She was clearly referring to Pride and Gluttony.

Envy was still mad at the fact that he received no straight answers from Psiren. This whole interrogation seemed all for naught, however, the clues she gave _may_ give them a few leads. He needed to keep looking for clues around Amestris, and alert Dante and, of course, Father of this mystery person. All he knew was that it was a man of very tall stature who was most likely an alchemist like Psiren, although far more advanced in the science than her. With apparent moodiness in his voice, Envy told Lust, "Let them do whatever the hell they want but tell them to hurry up, I have other things to focus on now…"

Lust noticed his sour mood, but did not say anything else to him in the meantime. Instead, she focused her sights on the other two homunculi who were currently eying the body on the ground. "Dig in, boys. Pride gets to go first, as usual."

"Gladly." Pride took off his hood, definitely knowing the coast was clear, and made a wicked, and borderline crazy, grin. He pounced on the body, with his scythe in hand, and tore open her body from the huge gash he inflicted on her, breaking every bone in the process to get to her center. He was aiming to get a hold of one area in particular.

As Pride was doing this, he unintentionally made a certain other homunculus impatient and hungry just by witnessing him tearing at the dead woman's corpse. "Aww…but I'm hungry right now…" Gluttony whined but quickly fell silent and obeyed her immediately when she glared at him warningly.

Envy spoke up again, but not really to any of them in particular. "We need to find this unknown asshole and end him. I say we track down EVERY part of the godforsaken country where we've left our mark or where any alchemists lived. We cannot risk any of the human ingrates learning of our existence and of ways to destroy us. Father will definitely give us the okay to start widespread massacres once we make it known to him that someone somewhere in this country is out to get us all." Lust was the only one that looked at him, although Pride was still aware enough to tune into the speech. However, any second now and he would be sucked so heavily into his feast that he wouldn't give much thought about his surroundings. This was not a new experience for them to witness and partake in, as he's done this countless of times today.

Pride finally found the one part of the body he was looking for the most-her heart. He ripped it out of place, then with great force deeply sucked all the blood out of it until it shrunk a few times down its original size. Then he went on to the other parts of the corpse where blood was a plenty. After he was sure he finished, he snapped out of his feeding trance, hyperventilating slightly, then looked at the others with a faraway look and most of his face painted with blood. The size of his irises were reverting back to the way they were before the feed, but the color noticeably change, albeit even a little. Instead of them appearing completely yellow-amber-gold like before, their very centers were showing off a darker shade of purple. Both the yellow and purple were dissolved together, so it wasn't a solid purple yet. Once the size of his eyes went back to normal, his pupils noticeably increased a bit in size as well. Edward did always have expressive, unique eyes, which carried on over to Pride. But as a typical homunculus, he was now sorely lacking a number of things his past identity had. "I have finished." The blonde said nonchalantly, as if nothing happened, as he walked away from the unrecognizable corpse, satisfied. Gluttony gleefully and impatiently jumped at the corpse next, quickly swallowing it whole followed by any of the other dismembered parts down with it.

Envy eyed Pride's visible changes for a few seconds, not as enthusiastic about them as he was the first time, but he was content that the blonde was finally changing for the worse. It went in line with what Father wanted, and most importantly what _he _wanted in order to enact his long-term vengeance. Pride displayed sadistic tendencies already, sure, but the older sin knew Pride still had a long way to go before he would make him into a complete monster.

"It seems our work in this watered down town is done. There's only one more hour until sunrise." Lust said with not a trace of worry in her voice.

"You think we'll make it back in time?" Pride asked out of curiosity, adding onto what Lust said. It wasn't that he lacked confidence in his speed, but it was beneficial to get answers from the eldest in charge.

All the other three homunculi stood feet in front of Envy, essentially waiting for the next command. "Let's go, we have our speed to rely on, and various shortcuts. The closest sewer entrance is a few miles away from Central City. Besides, even if humans see us in broad daylight they'll be stupid enough to recognize who we are. And of course, a certain someone has a cloak on, so they should be the last person to worry about that." He spat out the last sentence specifically in Pride's direction.

Pride wanted to snap at him for even suggesting someone like him worried at all! "I don't worry about a damn thing! I only wanted to know, _Envy_."

Envy laughed aloud mockingly. "Right, sure you aren't, _runt_." Pride locked eyes on Envy, giving him an almost deadly look. Envy responded in kind, before he turned around and, annoyed, said, "C'mon, we don't have all day to fool around with dumb questions. The old man is waiting for us." That was Pride's queue to dematerialize his scythe. All four of them raced out of the town with their fastest speed. Pride, now pumped up with a whole ton of blood in his system, was able to catch up with Envy and ran with him side by side. And he was just about to bypass Envy. When the older homunculus noticed this, he stopped Pride, with the other two stopping nearby witnessing this, and he pushed him to a nearby crumbling old wall, causing a few blocks to fall out. Pride, now in slight shock from the hit, still was able to stand his ground and regain his balance. Envy, not satisfied with his unsuccessful attempt at overpowering the blonde, seethed out, "Do **not **go ahead of me, always stay behind me! You're still an idiot who wouldn't know your head from your ass if I wasn't here to guide you through your pathetic existence!" True to his namesake, Envy was getting jealous of the fact that Pride was out-speeding him. Pride already held the highest sin name, which Envy questioned from the very beginning, he was not going to have the little bastard outdo him in his abilities either! _'It was all that damn blood he fed on! I'll need to put him on a diet._' Envy knew the blood would increase Pride's overall powers and abilities, but not this much and this soon! Then again, if he did force the blonde to stop consuming blood, two outcomes would occur: Envy would not be able to transform him into a total evil bastard, and Father would eventually find out and punish Envy for being a piss-poor mentor. Both outcomes served to be disadvantageous for him.

Pride only smirked at him cockily. "What's the matter, _Envy_? Getting pissed off over the fact that you're slower than me now? You know you're wasting our time over your pointless competitiveness, right? Thinking about your insecurities and low self-esteem all the time isn't beneficial."

"**Smartass little shit**!" Envy growled out and aimed a punch in his face. His fist did not hit flesh, instead it hit the crumbling wall located behind the blonde. He missed Pride's face by an inch, because the blonde quickly moved his head out of the way. The younger homunculus counteracted by elbowing Envy in his solar plexus, knocking the agile homunculus off balance and falling ass first on the ground. In return, Envy figured the only way he could subdue him on the ground, and that was by knocking him off his feet. Pride tumbled down to the ground next to him, and Envy quickly saw this as an opportunity to trap him on the ground by hovering over his body and stabbing him through his palms. Then, he sat on Pride's midsection and started crushing him, forcing a gasp out of the blonde. "Can't do shit now that I've stabbed you right in your weak points, huh _**smartass**_?! You might be able to out-race me, but even you have your weaknesses. And if you keep antagonizing me, I'll keep finding ways to use them against you."

Pride grinded his teeth together and narrowed his eyes at Envy. He soon felt liquid coming out of his palms, realizing he was bleeding out some of the blood he's previously consumed along with some of the red stone fluid that liquefied in his system. He looked to one of his palms and saw what his thoughts confirmed. He became really mad really quick. "Fucking…asshole…GET OFF ME!" He grounded out. Pride was about to strike back, with his head and teeth, but his 'savior' spoke just in time.

"Envy…now is not the time for your childish sibling squabbling with him. We need to get back to the lair as quick as possible." Lust spoke. She literally viewed the whole fight as nothing more than pointless shenanigans that she wished she didn't witness. If this was how they were going to act like every time, then she'd rather go out with Gluttony alone.

Envy listened to her and let go of Pride, towering over the blonde and giving him a menacing glare. Pride only returned a similar expression Lust was always the one to knock reason back into him when his temper took over while they were doing missions together. But even so, he still suppressed the urge to strike at the blonde, specifically by wanting to kick him in the shin now when he had the chance. He decided on waiting until later to continue beating the shit out of him. "Get the fuck up and let's go…" Envy finally said, trying to calm himself down.

With his palms healing up immediately, Pride stood up from the grassy ground, noticing the two wet spots that were left behind. The blood that was shed from him got lost in the dirt forever. He looked away from the ground and glared at Envy. They did not need to say anymore, they all knew what to do next. Envy ran off first, followed by Lust, then Gluttony, and lastly Pride, who decided best to stay a good distance away from the asshole when they ran. He also didn't want them to waste anymore time, since they still had a long way to go.

They returned to the closest sewer entrance Envy mentioned before almost right on time, just as the sun rose in the distance. After that point, Pride took off the cloak and held it. The walk to the actual lair was almost entirely silent. They passed by where Sloth usually would be, but she was not there at the moment. Wild, little Wrath was also nowhere to be found. He was probably called upon by Father. Father actually told Envy that it was about time the boy had a weapon of his own from now on when he tagged along during missions. It wouldn't do for Wrath to have nothing to use besides his default homunculus abilities. Like Pride, he had no special powers of his own but Father is currently working on that. The four returning homunculi headed straight for his throne room. To Pride's surprise, both Sloth and Wrath were already there talking with him. He finally saw all the other homunculi together in the same room, a sight which he imagined would be pretty rare to witness yet here it was right in front of him.

With everyone in the lair currently in one room, Envy didn't exactly care if the others heard what he was about to say or if he even interrupted anything. What he had in mind was more important for Father now than any other petty issues. "We took care of the minor problem in that cruddy city. Everyone has been eliminated, including the phantom thief. But the good news ends there."

Father looked at Envy seriously. "Elaborate as much as possible, Envy. We now have all the time in the world to listen."

"Yes, we _all _need to listen, because it concerns us homunculi and the pesky human alchemists who've become too nosy for their own good." Envy took out the now dried out, but blood-stained, crumpled sheets of paper they found from Psiren's home and handed them to Father. "We might have gone overboard with the stains, but there's a good portion of it with legible writing. We had to tortured her for any leads on how she got all this information about us. Some clues were given, but no clear-cut answers. She said a large man in a dark cloak gave her all this years ago, and he didn't give her his identity. If such a low-end alchemist like her could get a hold of this, I wonder how easy other alchemist all across Amestris could too. And we have no idea who this mystery guy is! He could be anywhere these days."

Father spoke while clutching the armrests of his throne, "Yes, this is indeed concerning. So what are you proposing we do to be rid of this issue?" He spoke calmly, with any hint of worry or paranoia in his voice.

Envy grinned smartly. "Shouldn't it be obvious? I say we continue going on killing sprees upon all the small cities and towns in this damned country where alchemists live or have lived, along with any place we homunculi have passed through and left our mark on them with the stones. We cannot risk having these filthy humans learning about our existence and trying to snuff us out!"

"You are all right to be extremely paranoid. With their limited mindset and intelligence, humans _do _tend to find ways to ruin what we have laid out for them. However, it would be unrealistic to target _all _the places you've described. We must only focus on destroying those with least significance, places and people that are of a lower stock. Although keep in mind, we don't want to cause a mass genocide of their whole species. You may target most of these lesser places when I give you the command to do so. However, Central and its four other sister districts need to remain largely untouched for now, unless I say otherwise. I have big plans for their populations, and they might take years to be carried out. All of you will need to be put to great use for what I have in store." He looked at every one of them individually.

All the homunculi grinned in their own signature ways, but Pride was actually the one to speak first. "Gladly, Father. I enjoyed tonight's trip very much." The only thing Pride didn't enjoy was Envy fighting him again, but he kept that memory at the back of his mind.

Father eyed him proudly, taking note of the color change in Pride's eyes. "That's good to hear from your mouth, Pride. It looks like you've feasted quite a lot this morning, it's evident you are full of enough energy and power now." He focused his attention on the others in the room. "Now, is there anything else any of you need to state? If not then you are all dismissed. Except Pride."

Pride smirked in Envy's direction when Father said this, earning him a scowl from the green-haired sin, before Envy turned to leave. When he and the others left, Pride said, "Let me guess, my pants are ready?" The younger blonde said this with pure confidence.

Father nodded, finding Pride's new-found liveliness amusing. "Yes, they are." He reached into one of his long, deep pockets and pulled out the leathery cloth, holding it out to Pride. "They should be able to fit just like the other clothes I've given you."

Pride reached for them, then out of gratitude said, "Thank you, Father, now I'll finally be out of this annoying thing that looks too much like his…" Father actually laughed in response to this.

"I understand why you're trying to stray as much as possible from resembling Envy, and it's alright to do so. If that was the reason why you requested the pants you should've told me."

Pride shook his head. "That wasn't the only reason. They were too uncomfortable. I feel like I would work best while wearing pants and not that ridiculous thing." He looked at the pants, then down below at his lower body, still not quite satisfied yet. He forgot to ask Father for shoes too, but he figured the pants would have to do for now. He'll be asking for too much if he told him now. There was always next time.

Father smiled, still amused at this whole exchange. "Fair enough, my son." Without another word, Pride headed out finally satisfied that he was getting somewhere with what he wanted.

When he entered his room, he immediately took off the annoying skort and undid the pants from their fold. Before he put them on, he took a glance at the markings all over his lower body then traced them up to his upper body, wondering what their purpose was on him and why the others don't have elaborate marking like this. Except for the elaborate markings, he recognized the two red circles located on the outer side of his hands, along with two lines of different length trailing up to them on each arm and eerily appearing the glow on top of his gloves. He also noticed similar straight red lines trailing down the back side of his legs and going underneath his feet. He picked up his feet and noticed the same red circle nodes from his hands located underneath his feet. The only mark he shares in common with the others is the one on his left shoulder, the ouroboros mark. It didn't occur to him to ask Father before when he had the chance to, but he would have the opportunity to do ask him this also next time around. He put the pants on then sat up on the bed, staring at the abandoned skort he threw on the floor nearby for a long while.

He's been largely confused about his 'family' so far, but that confusion was decreasing and certainty was taking its place. It was the certainty about his position amongst the others, his true purpose to be something great. And he would do so regardless of Envy pestering him or not. He can finally be able to hold his head up high towards that asshole, with every feed he has, and not worry as much about being victimized. The next time the androgynous hot-head tries to hit him, for whatever reason, he would be able to defend himself, and at least be on equal standing with him.

Pride suddenly had a idea. He didn't want to be cooped up in his room the whole day, and he now remembered a few pathways of the lair that he could easily explore. Even if he was still too young to be out travelling on the upper world on his own, Father didn't forbid him from travelling a bit within their own lair, and everything appeared to be very quiet now. Everyone probably stepped out to do Gate knows what. Even Envy, who hated his guts for whatever reason he'll probably never realize, just seemed to vanish as well. Speaking of him, Pride had something in mind for the skort that looked very much like his. He grabbed it from the floor then headed out, appearing to know exactly where he was going.

ENDING NOTE: The song used is 'Seek and Destroy' by none other than Metallica. This is yet another band I admire, and this won't be the only song I'll use from them either.

You can listen to it here: watch?v=MVM8DUhdLyo

I would appreciate it if you let me know what you guys think, I'd like to receive as much feedback as possible. And if there are any spelling/grammar mistakes, do NOT make that the only point in your feedback. I'd like to hear about my story TELLING, first and foremost.


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